[Ads-l] mic/mike (was fuck them)

[Laurence Horn]

It's partly habit. We accept (grudgingly or not) that "pint" can have the /aI/ diphthong (as opposed to "hint", "lint", "tint", etc.), so in principle "mic" could too.  It's just that it did used to be abbreviated "mike" so when we (of a certain age) see "mic" we assume it's *not* short for m/aI/crophone, but for something that rhymes with "Bic" and "tic".

LH

> On Aug 31, 2016, at 3:21 PM, Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> No, Amy. It's not just you. I still spell it mike, just like I did when I
> learned it back in the 50s. Though come to think of it, I never really
> learned it, just heard it pronounced mike and spelled it accordingly, just
> like a guy's name. Mick could be a guy's name too, but it's not short for
> mickrophone. so what gives?
> 
> Marc Sacks
> 
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
> 
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: mic/mike (was fuck them)
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------
>> 
>> On 8/31/16 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
>>> Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 20:51:41 -0400 From: Jonathan Lighter
>>> <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> Subject: Re: fuck them Yeah, whenever I read
>>> the pop-pedantic "mic," I still think "Mick," which must make me some
>>> kind of bigot. JL On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Laurence Horn
>>> <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>>>> Yeah, I've run into that.  I just can't read"mic" with a "long" (i.e.
>>>>> diphthongized great-vowel-shifted) "i".  But we're a dying breed,
>> Dubya(s).
>> 
>> Thank God it's not just me.
>> 
>> ---Amy West
>> 
>> 
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