It’s a regular verb: root; root + ed = past; root + ing = transitive. The only thing changing is the spelling. But you see why the spelling must be changed for past and transitive in order to clarify the pronunciation; why not for the infinitive?
You’re right; pronunciation is based on usage, but it also has a set of generlaly accepted rules. “G” is not a great example of such rules because it can be pronounced either hard or soft, which doesn’t give a non-native speaker much of a clue in any specific case, except that a person who knows “linger” might suspect “finger”'s correct pronunciation – though if they thought of “singer” instead they’d be screwed.
But it is a generally recognized rule that three letter words, CVC take a short vowel, not a long vowel: Gap. Pet. Pin. Cop. Dun. As we all all learned in first grade, if you want to make the vowel-sound long, you add an “e”: Gape. Pete. Pine. Cope. Dune. So applying this general rule, “mic”=“mick,” and unfortunately, that’s what I hear in my head every time I see it in print.
Here’s the thing: “Mic” is great for a label on a piece of equipment that gives 1/4" or less room for said label, and is clearly a legitimate abbreviation. “Microphone” is great for those who are writing about it. But when people talk about it, they often naturally shorten the word, and in this case the natural way to represent this shortened spoken form is “mike.” Which is why “mike” has been around for 80 years, about as long as microphones have been around. And the funny thing is, “mike” has been understood to thus mean “microphone” for 80 years. There was no more need to change it to “mic” (when representing the spoken short form) than there is to change “nuke” to “nuc” when discussing nuclear weapons. I can only assume some brain-deficient gearhead couldn’t grasp this concept, and started us on the road to hell by writing it as “mic.”
Well, if you look in any pre-1995 dictionary, the prefix “Giga” is pronouced with a soft “G”. So much for technonerds knowing a damn thing about language.
And it has therefore become an acceptablealternative. Don’t like it? Tough, because that’s how English works.
So do I. Every time it’s used as the name of a friend, who abbreviates Michael that way. Useful thing, context - how do you cope with other words with more than one pronunciation?
I am a former copy editor who is now a news editor. I have also been employed in commercial radio broadcasting in various capacities since 1966. I have always used “mike,” in spite of labels on consumer-level audio equipment.
That was probably influenced in part by a long-running column entitled “Behind The Mike,” which appeared in * The Oregonian, * the largest daily newspaper in the state of Oregon.
Thanks - I was trying to think up a way to googlefight these two without ‘mike’ getting spurious results. And the mics have it. ‘On the mic’ is a runaway winner, although 'at the mike/mic is almost equal.
As a technonerd from way back, I’ve never heard anybody pronoune it with a soft "G’ going back to the 1970s – except for Christopher lloyd in Back to the Future. And he caught lots of grief for that one. He said he’d been misinformed.
Can’t say I’ve checked dictionaries on this, but if they say soft "g’, they’re misinformed, too.
Yes, the dictionaries that ruled the world were wrong on this one, and the hard drive salesmen in leisure suits were right. Yes, you must be right since you are an old doper with many posts. :rolleyes:
In any case, the “new” dictionaries will reflect the illiteracy of the asshats in the computer business (the most illiterate of all professions), so you will eventually be right, only because a dictionary reflects usage. D’oh! So you will be “blinging” in your knowledge of the language.
/not
//Show me an IT guy and I will show you a guy who can not spel.
And exactly what metric was the Giga prefix being used for in the 70’s? Not memory capacity, not processor speed. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd was on the right track. In fact he certainly was.
Yah, all the dictionaries were wrong:
I notice “Giant” has a soft “G”, so I guess the greeks were wrong too. I mean they only invented it.
It looks stupid, clumsy and wrong, but “mic” is how I’ve always seen it. The way I figure it, if you put a microphone on someone, they’ve been “mic’d.” It’s easier on the brain. Maybe they should just spell it “myc” so the pronunciation sounds right in the brain.
In forty years of playing and singing, I’ve always used “mikes”, not “mics”. But look what I found on Shure’s site, in a blurb about their SM series, of which I have several:
Since hard-G “Gig” is the accepted and now preferred pronunciation, obviously the salesman speaks English perfectly well.
I’d think any person who would “correct” someone like this (“I can’t help it if you don’t speak English”) was being a consummate jerk. My head might “asplode,” but it would be from anger, not confusion.
