Is it pronounced "beard" or "heard"? "Tear" or "tear"? "Grieve" or "sieve"? "Lover" or "clover"? "Device" or "crevice"?

You're implying that there should be a logical correspondence between how English words sound and how they're spelled. I'm not convinced that is true.

No I'm implying the exact opposite.

That's actually quite funny, I would say gist is pronounced jist but only because it's clearly a play on the word "jist" in the first place. Like a branded version of a generic term - like tumblr where we all know it's actually tumbler rather than tumblr but with a different pronounciation due to copyright.

Gist is a word. Jist is a misspelling of gist or just, no more.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gist%2Cjist&ye... makes me wonder just what happened around 1840. I suspect https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_the_Little_Frenchman_Wear... (uses jist regularly as a misspelling of just) may have something to do with it.

Gingko or jingko? Given our jiven? Give or jive? Gill or Jill? Giddy or jiddy?

Both patterns exist in the language.

> Give or jive?

These are both words pronounced really differently, though. Give is a hard 'g' short 'i', jive is a 'j' and a long 'i'.

I'd like to add 'Gaol' or 'Jail'? Debra vs Zebra (These are pronounced differently in the US).

> Both patterns exist in the language.

Yes that is my point.