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

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

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

In looking back over 2024 I am compelled to note that in May of this year John Romero, he of making Doom and helping cement the very genre of the first person shooter fame, said that "gib" is pronounced with a "soft 'g'" like in "giblets." Giblets, of course, being the little chunks of people that models would explode into in old first-person shooters when exploded by like, a rocket launcher, or a lightning gun, or whatever. An FPS term now so old that you might play a lot of FPS and not even recognize it.

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 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.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.