History!!

History!!

1.21 jiggawatts!
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4242145?utm_hp_ref=entertainment

Comments

Dave Maez said…
Paul Edwards - The author of the first article confuses soft Gs ('g'eography) and hard Gs ('g'ive).  The second article points to Wikipedia. And the third article just says that dictionaries show both pronunciations as being correct.

According to Wikipedia (http://goo.gl/QFI7nO) the NIST decided to pronounce giga- with a soft G in the 1960s, but otherwise there's no historical precedent.  It even goes on to say: "This suggests that a hard German [ɡ] was originally intended as the pronunciation. Self was unable to ascertain at what point the alternative pronunciation came into occasional use, but claimed that as of 1995 it had died out"

So I think I (and the other 80+% of English speakers) will just keep on pronouncing it with the hard G and give strange looks to anyone who isn't Doc Brown that pronounces it with a soft G.  ;-)
Paul M Edwards said…
For the record, I pronounce both gigawatts and GIF with hard G sounds... Partly because of my anti-authoritarian bent and partly to go along with the crowd.
I am a complex individual.

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