I think so. Looking for a logical rule based on phonetics or spelling is probably not worth it - abbreviations are just stuff someone made up - and usually for convenience or comfort of speech, not for accuracy or preservation of meaning.
It’s not very unusual for shortenings to insert or rearrange sounds so that the abbreviated word rolls off the tongue more easily - consider for example: Kilometre -> Klick
Well, I am a linguist, and I’d just say that using the term “hard” when describing vowels or consonants is problematic because there’s no definition for it. It’s not a standard term, and really is subjective. It could mean anything.
Not around here … Especially in American cities where bicycles are becoming more prevalent, “bike” always means bicycle.
Only for people who are part of the tiny motorcycle subculture does “bike” default to motorbike.
There is a discussion of this exact question in American Speech, a journal of linguistics only readily available on JSTOR, which is not accessible without an expensive subscription. However from the teaser I can gather that it is a named rule in English about the alternation of the k and s sound of the letter c in specific placements in words and behind certain vowels.
Moke is already a word. It is an archaic word for mule and has been adapted, in Barbados at least, for a small, 4 seat open vehicle, presumably from replacing mules.
None of the explanations for the original question are entirely convincing. There would not be any problem with bice rhyming with mice. After all rice manages to continue. (Although my colleague conjectured that it might reanalyzed as a plural of a new count noun rie for a single grain, as happened with pease.) It is really a good question with no obvious answer. I wonder how old the word is.
Because “bice” is a shade of blue.
I think it’s just that, in general, abbreviations are not designed, they just happen - ‘Soccer’ (as an abbreviation/slang for ‘Association Football’) makes little semantic sense at all in its own right - it just happened because a person, or people started using - possibly influenced by ‘rugger’ as slang for Rugby Football.
If there is no good explanation, then all explanations will be unconvincing.
I’m not a linguist, but I don’t see why anything would need to be neatly defined for it to be true. Is not linguistics based on tendencies, not hard lines?
Plus it seems intuitive to me that the poster is comparing the manner of articulation. /k/ is a stop, while /s/ is a fricative (and sibilant). I would intuitively call stops harder than fricatives.
That said, it is only a hypothesis. Is there any evidence for such a preference when forming these non-written abbreviations?
My hypothesis is that the word was thought of as “bic.”, and C at the end of a word was pronounced /k/. Spelling followed pronunciation, and so became “bike” instead. The test would be to see if “bic.” was ever an abbreviation for bicycle.
Uke is already short for ukulele. And, of course, quake is already a word, and has a completely different vowel, to boot.
I also thought of making requiring the entire numerical prefix. “Quadrack” sorta works, but you just get word that sound like “unique” or “eunuch” with unicycle.
If we could see copies of the first several times the word “bike” was published, we’d have a chance of cracking this case. As it is, we’re all just making wild guesses.
If you try to navigate the English language using logic as your guide, good luck to ya’.
I use “bike” regularly to speak of either, the kids have their bikes and I have mine. I’ve heard “cycling” frequently, always referring to bicycling, but never anyone actually call out either as a “cycle”. There are however several local motorcycle specific shops with names like ABC CYCLE or Smith Cycle parts, ect, but no similarly named bicycle shops I can think of.
Son-of-a-Gun!
Honestly, I thought someone would tell me something like “Because it’s from the [other language], where it’s pronounced ByKiKle”
Instead, I discover, to my joy, that there are still unanswered questions where I understand the question. Which is an surprisingly happy experience.
(I think I’ve spent too much time trying to learn quantum electronics, immunology, and how to be a good parent. Subjects were everyone else already know the answers.)
Mouse -> mice
Louse -> lice
Grouse -> grice
House -> hice
Rouse -> rice
Hmmm. I seem to have a word problem. I should probably get the advouse of an expert.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary:
Bicycle first appears in 1868, in both British and US sources. It’s an import from French.
The earlier recorded use of bike is in the compound phrase “bike literature”, used in a book review in the the Cyclist and Bicycling and Tricycling Trades Review in December 1880:
“We can conscientiously recommend it as an excellent shillingsworth of ‘bike’ and ‘trike’ literature.”
(This is also the first recorded use of trike.)
A Sporting Life article in 1883 helpfully identifies bike and trike as terms used in London. Presumably the writer thought that some readers would be unfamiliar with the terms.
Motorbike first appears in 1885, in the US, which implies that bike for a bicycle was already common in the US by them. And bike as an abbreviation for motorbike rather than for bicycle first appears in 1903, also in the US.
I imagine it’s something like that. A similar example I can think of is the British shortening of “Mercedes” into “Merc,” said as “Merk.” Also, as a shortening of “mercenaries,” it’s often pronounced as “merk,” too.
Su-weet. I can see that article:
Huh.
If there was still any doubt, I’ve now confirmed that most of you have me set to Ignore.
I believe Yogi Bear may have pronounced it “bike-ikle” at least once 