"Clique": kleek? klick?

[carole crompton]

We said kleek in Southern California in the early 60's.
CMC
On Monday, January 2, 2006, at 04:40 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Clique": kleek? klick?
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> 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
>