[QUOTE=Happy Wanderer]
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.
/technonerd
[/QUOTE]
So Doc Brown got it right after all. You just made my day.
[QUOTE=Sharky]
According to the AP Stylebook, “mike” is the correct abbreviation for “microphone”.
[/QUOTE]
What’s it listed under? I can’t find it under “microphone” or “mike.”
Aside: I’d always heard the abbreviation for laceration, “lac”, pronounced as lack on er (my medical authority!) as in, “he has a giant scalp ‘lack’”. Then on Grey’s Anatomy last night, they pronounce it “lass” which actually makes more sense.
Which medical show is more accurate on this particular issue?
[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
Except an apostrophe indicates that a letter is missing, and the word with the apostrophe is an abbreviation.
In this context, the missing letter is obviously an “e”, so “mic’d” is an abbreviation for “miced” and we’re back to Eve’s original point.
[/QUOTE]
Obviously, the missing letters are “rophone.” 
[QUOTE=Happy Wanderer]
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.
/sheesh
[/QUOTE]
I’m not even going to try to figure out what the hell you’re going on about here, but it should be noted that Greek doesn’t have a “soft G” sound. I’m not sure why you made reference to a Greek word (which you incomprehensible wrote in the Roman alphabet, not the Greek one), but quite obviously if you are worried about Greek pronunciation, than you recognize that “giga-” with a “hard G” is correct, and that the “soft G” pronunciation is therefore obviously a sign of illiteracy and ignorance of history.
[QUOTE=Sharky]
According to the AP Stylebook, “mike” is the correct abbreviation for “microphone”.
[/QUOTE]
And as I noted earlier, there’s more than one style guide in existence, and they don’t all agree.
Well, I did learn what I asked, anyway: “mic” seems to come from the techie abbreviation. What surprises me is how prevalent it’s been for so long! I hadn’t noticed “mic” till the past few years, have always seen “Mike.”
Since we can’t kill mic, maybe we can start a drive for mic.?
. . . Now to get the period taken out of “Ms.”.
[QUOTE=Eve]
In the past few years, I have been seeing “mic” more and more often, which I cannot stand: it looks like it should be pronounced “mick,”
[/QUOTE]
Why doesn’t the longer word look like it should be pronounced mickrophone?
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Hey, I brought this up in another thread a couple of months ago, and a bunch of audiophiles jumped all over me. The abbreviation was “Mic”, and always had been, and only ignorant civilians thought it ought to be “Mike”.
Good to see they’re treating Eve nicer.
[/QUOTE]
Well, of course they’re treating Eve nicer. I mean, it’s EVE. Abusing her is like publically dissing Galadriel. You can do it–using the literal meaning of “can”–but you’d best be prepared to have your head chopped off and to find yourself pumped full of arrows at the same moment.
[QUOTE=Happy Wanderer]
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.
/sheesh
[/QUOTE]
The greek word is γίγας, which is pronounced with a hard G.
[QUOTE=acsenray]
What’s it listed under? I can’t find it under “microphone” or “mike.”
[/QUOTE]
I searched on “microphone” on the “Ask the Editor” page on APStylebook.com.
You’re correct, of course. I’m just used to using the AP Stylebook as the house standard reference. 
[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
Except an apostrophe indicates that a letter is missing, and the word with the apostrophe is an abbreviation.
In this context, the missing letter is obviously an “e”, so “mic’d” is an abbreviation for “miced” and we’re back to Eve’s original point.
(And thanks for raising it, Eve - I’ve wondered about this for a while as well.)
[/QUOTE]
Right, but it’s easier on the eyes.
Sigh. I do believe the mike/mic has become a generational divide. Googling “open mike” yielded 1.48 megahits, while “open mic” scored 7.49 megahits.
The tide has definitely been turned by the consarn whippersnappers, but we — the few, the proud, the stubborn — will resist on the ramparts, armed only with our pride, Eve’s blessing, and a quiver of mixed metaphors. :: sound of distant bugle::
[QUOTE=Hometownboy]
The tide has definitely been turned by the consarn whippersnappers, but we — the few, the proud, the stubborn — will resist on the ramparts, armed only with our pride, Eve’s blessing, and a quiver of mixed metaphors. :: sound of distant bugle::
[/QUOTE]
Gee. I feel like Liberty Leading the People Over the Barricades of Paris, except [checks quickly] my boobs aren’t hanging out.
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Right, but it’s easier on the eyes.
[/QUOTE]
I think that’s a matter of opinion. To me, “mic’d” looks like it’s pronounced “micked” so it disrupts the flow of reading.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Have you ever seen a calendar where the last 2 months are abbreviated “Nove” and “Decce”? I personally think that these rules that you speak of are out the window for abbreviations.
Yeah, we all know that the World begins and ends with PC specs.
:rolleyes:
