CLIK/CLEEK & NATIVE SPEAKER

[Simon,Beth]

Central Iowa (Des Moines) -- The word _clique_ /klIk/ "click" was not
infrequent in my high school. We were all in clicks, talked about
clicks, were or weren't in so-n-so's click, etc. But then, we all said
"nitch" _niche_.

I've since learned "neesh" -- but I usu forget. I've probably said
"cleek" out loud, maybe twice, but when I see _clique_ in print, I
hear/read "click".

beth

beth lee simon, ph.d.
associate professor, linguistics and english
indiana university purdue university
tel 219 481 6772; fax 219 481 6985
email simon at ipfw.edu

American Dialect Society wrote:
>
> The heavy majority for "click" so far has surprised me.  I learned the word
> as "cleek" and still pronounce it that way on the rare occasions when I use
> it at all.  I've heard "click," of course, and it bothered me because 1) we
> already have a word pronounced that way and it means something else, and 2)
> I figured that most people know the French sequence -ique is pronounced
> [ik] (not [Ik]) in other words, whether they actually speak French or not,
> so why wouldn't they follow the same pattern in this case?
>
> My reaction may stem from a false assumption that since it's a
> comparatively infrequent word, most people would have first encountered it
> in writing, or at least learned it in some context that was closely
> associated with the spelling.  Two other factors may be that 1) my mother,
> from whom I first heard the word, knew French, and 2) this list has taught
> me that some of my actual, native-speaker pronunciations are spelling
> pronunciations for other people.
>
> So on second thought, maybe I should disqualify myself as a reliable
> informant.
>
> Peter Mc.
>
> ****************************************************************************
>                                Peter A. McGraw
>                    Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
>                             pmcgraw at linfield.edu
>
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> From:         "Peter A. McGraw" <pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: CLIK/CLEEK & NATIVE SPEAKER [was "FAG one last time"]
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