"Clique": kleek? klick?

[Wilson Gray]

On 1/2/06, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Clique": kleek? klick?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >As has been noted (OED2), *clique* is only 'kleek' in Britain and consequently
> >for me.  But I've been interested to see in this discussion that not all
> >Americans say (only) 'klick'.  In interviews conducted around Philadelphia
> >(and
> >in conversation with colleagues from all over the States) I have only ever
> >heard
> >'klick', and, actually, when I first heard the word from a Philadelphian
> >interviewee, I needed an (internal) double-take to realise that what had just
> >been said wasn't some sense of *click* that I hadn't been familiar with.
>
> Today I asked two young persons; they are siblings; both have attended the
> same high school. One claims to use only "kleek", the other only "klick". I
> guess they must have been in different cliques at school. (Both are happy
> with "obleek" and "nitch".)
>
> -- Doug
>

I've always used "nitch," first as a consequence of mis-etymologizing
"niche" as a derivative of "nick," then as a consequence of assuming
that the word must have been fully anglicized by now, given that it
appears so often in print, if only relatively rarely in speech,
whether pronounced as "nitch" or as "nish."

"Oblique" is another word that I first learned through reading. I
assumed that its pronunciation was "obleek." By weird coincidence, I
never had occasion to hear this word spoken until after I had joined
the Army. In basic training, this is a word common in dismounted drill
- marching practice, to you civilians - where it is always pronounced
"oblike," as in, e.g. "By the left oblike, forWARD, HARCH!"

Since the word was being spoken this way by white men with
non-Southern accents, I assumed that "obleek" must be wrong and that
"oblike" must be right. So, this is the pronunciation that I
internalized.

Years later, when I was in grad school, I was discussing direct and
oblike cases with one of my housemates. Said housemate stated that the
correct pronunciation was "obleek." He was a white man, but only, like
me, a mere grad student, whereas the white men from whom I had learned
"oblike" were persons of "authoritigh," as they say in South Park, CO.
So, the argument was settled in his favor by a higher authority
through reference to MWD. But then, I decided that I would continue
say "oblike," anyway, WTF. Needless to say, I've had no occasion to
speak the word since that time.

-Wilson