Not such a nyfty idea

This is just plain dumb:

Plans call for Sci Fi and its companion Web site (scifi.com) to morph into the oddly spelled Syfy — pronounced the same as “Sci Fi” — on July 7. The new name will be accompanied by the slogan “Imagine Greater,” which replaces a logo featuring a stylized version of Saturn.

[. . .]

We couldn't own Sci Fi; it's a genre,” said Bonnie Hammer, the former president of Sci Fi who became the president of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. “But we can own Syfy.”

Another benefit of the new name is that it is not “throwing the baby away with the bath water,” she added, because it is similar enough to the Sci Fi brand to convey continuity to “the fan-boys and -girls who love the genre.”

[. . .]

The principal reason the idea kept coming up, Mr. Howe said, was a belief “the Sci Fi name is limiting.”

“If you ask people their default perceptions of Sci Fi, they list space, aliens and the future,” he added. “That didn't capture the full landscape of fantasy entertainment: the paranormal, the supernatural, action and adventure, superheroes.”

Aarrrghh! Sorry, but Syfy is not -- or rather, will not be --  pronounced the same as "sci-fi." It will be pronounced "Siffy," and people are going to start calling it that in a jyfy, and the channel will become a laughingstock. There already is a variant of the genre's designation that encompasses all the variety Howe wishes to signal: SF (or "esseff" or maybe even "eyseyf"), which can stand for science fiction, science fantasy or speculative fiction, the latter covering everything from horror to sword-and-sorcery epics.