This year John Romero declared that 'gib' is pronounced like 'giblet' and it's the gif debate all over again

GamesThis year John Romero declared that ‘gib’ is pronounced like ‘giblet’ and it’s the gif debate all over againWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: @romero on Twitter/X.)

A post that reads: "Gibs is pronounced with a soft "g" like in "giblets," the word from which it originates, or "gentleman.""

This caused my colleague Harvey Randall some slight distress. “Mighty allfather of FPS games and co-creator of Doom John Romero decrees that ‘gib’ is pronounced in the most upsetting way possible,“said Mr. Randall in an article at the time.

Except I’d been pronouncing it with a soft g, like giblet, my entire life. Ever since I’d first heard it. This isn’t something we ever had to think about because it’s a shortened version of a real word. The chunks are gibs, yes, the components of giblets. It’s not like gif, for example, which is its own whole word.

Except now it’s totally like gif for the Mr. Randalls of the world, and everyone else who’s been saying gib with a hard g, even though that’s neither how you say giblet nor gin. There are, it seems, many hard-g gib pronouncers among us—ask your Discord group and you might find some real discord.

So honestly what the heck, John? Just don’t answer questions like this because now we have to quibble over pronunciation for the rest of time.

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