Jif is rolling out a limited-edition peanut butter to settle the debate over the pronunciation of 'GIF' once and for all

Long before viral sensations like "the dress" divided the internet, another online phenomenon was already polarizing the masses: the pronunciation of "GIF."

The GIF — or graphics interchange format, a file label for short animated clips — quickly became a staple of the internet after it was created in 1987. Over the course of more than three decades, GIFs have proliferated across social-media feeds, serving as their own type of internet lingo.

But all the while debate raged: Is GIF pronounced with a hard or soft "g" sound?

Now, Jif is taking matters into its own hands. The peanut-butter brand owned by J.M. Smuckers Co. is stoking the embers of the 30-year-old controversy with a tongue-in-cheek campaign intended to settle the pronunciation debate.

In advance of National Peanut Butter Lovers Day, March 1, the company is teaming up with GIPHY to sell limited-edition containers of peanut butter that swap out the classic Jif label with "Gif" and replace "7 g of protein" with "hard g pronunciation."

For Jif, the effort is intended "to put a lid on this decade-long debate and prove there is only one Jif ... it's creamy, delicious peanut butter, not a looping picture you can send to make friends and family laugh," Rebecca Scheidler, Jif's vice president of marketing, said in a statement.

The products will be available on Jif.com and Amazon for $10 while supplies last.

The special-edition label seems to be a departure from what had appeared to be Jif's former pro-soft-"g" stance.

In 2013, the company expressed support for GIF founder Steve Wilhite, who spoke out against the popular hard-"g" pronunciation — which by then had even become the preferred manner of speaking for the Obama administration — in an interview with The New York Times.

"The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations," Wilhite told The Times. "They are wrong. It is a soft 'G,' pronounced 'jif.' End of story."

In short order, Jif made a GIF of its own in support of Wilhite's announcement and their shared pronunciations.

"We're nuts about him today," a brand spokesperson told The Times regarding Wilhite.

When asked what prompted the change of heart, a Jif spokesperson was quick to deny that the 2013 GIF was an official statement by the company.

"It's true — we've always been nuts for a good GIF, and the guy who created it — but we've never have taken an official stance on the pronunciation before," Christine Hoffman, Jif's consumer-engagement lead, told us.

She added: "With millions of GIFs in use daily, the pronunciation confusion continues to be a conundrum for all of us ... We think now is the time to declare, once and for all, that the word of Jif (with a soft 'G') should be used exclusively in reference to our delicious peanut butter, and the clever, funny animated GIFs we all use and love should be pronounced with a hard 'G.'"