"Clique": kleek? klick?

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

I don't trust my memory too much on this but I'm pretty sure it was "klick" when I was in high school in Lincoln NE in the 80s.

I'd also say that's the dominant pronunciation today at least in the Midwest. I've done lots of interviews with high school students in Michigan, Indiana, and Missouri and never hear "kleek" from them.

For those of you who use the tense vowel, i.e. "kleek", do you have that in the adjective 'cliquish' too? or maybe you don't use that adjective.


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of sagehen
Sent: Sat 12/31/2005 10:19 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: "Clique": kleek? klick?
 
I've never said anything but "kleek," and I *think* that pronunciation was
general among my (white) school friends in Lincoln NE back in the '40s.  I
began to hear "klick" when I spent  year at a highschool in Winnetka IL
just after the war. It does seem to me now that "klick" is heard  more
often than "kleek."
A.Murie