Do you remember that we discussed how to pronounce "gif" some time ago? You know, those funny little videos that your companions of discord send you at 3am to do mental damage to you. Fortunately, no one is discussing it anymore. 

This lie I tell myself is now coupled by a memory that I have to suppress forever, going forward—John Romero, co-founder of Id software and co-creator of a small first-person shooter called Doom-FPS jargon "Jib" (such that their bodies can invade bloody offal). (To blow someone to pieces, so that they can be heard), I have ordered that it be pronounced in a way that I simply can not follow.

"Gibb is pronounced with a soft 'g'," Romero says from the top of his lying throne, and I assume, the skull: "The word it comes from, like 'gibb',"

That is, listen, Romero is not wrong. Motsu is certainly pronounced with a soft g (which produces something like a j sound), but that doesn't mean there must be a shortened term. Ignore the fact that you think "gif" is perfectly pronounced with a hard g, because "graphic" is as well. We're not here to talk about me, we're here to talk about the bloody clumps of FPS splatters.

Despite ostensibly writing words for life, eight hours a day, five days a week, my opinion about how words should be used (and should be spoken) is very atmosphere-based. This may sound counterintuitive, but as with most things, the more you learn about English, the less meaningful it is of any kind.

For example, did you know that factoid, used in general terms to mean "little facts", originally meant facts that were false but sounded real? Or did Shakespeare invent the words bubble, bandit and critic? Or that "laser" is an acronym, or "Wi-Fi" means "We're all not just making things up, we don't always stop."

So certainly, when we look at how we currently use the language, the Romero argument (which I'm taking too seriously) comes out. Most abbreviations are pronounced in the same way as root words. I've been completely too long looking for abbreviations to find one that subverts this trend, and the best I can find is the popular game term "char", which stands for "character". Otherwise, earn 1 to Romero.

But earn infinity to me: try to say "insta-gibbed" as Romero suggests. Insta Zibdo. It doesn't sound right. I was jib at video games. It's a poison on the tongue.