Teleguy61
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Yes indeed--
So close, I call Folk Music "Wistful remembrance of a time that never was".
Same idea.
General Music Humor
- Thread starter GAD
- Start date
So close, I call Folk Music "Wistful remembrance of a time that never was".
Same idea.
Prince of Darkness
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Prince of Darkness
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The Guilds of Grot
Enlightened Member
So do you play at an Open Mic, or Open Mike?It's actually "mike," but we'll let it go.
Opsimath
Senior Member
As long as we're on the mic/mike subject it has been unclear to me for some time whether mic is pronounced mick or mike? Can anyone clear that up for me, please?Magic Mic or Magic Mike?
By the way, nice photo.
Open Mike.
Why is it "mike?" Because if you use a "c" it causes all sorts of other problems.
Miking vs. Micing
Miked vs. Miced
etc.
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I've never seen microphone referred to as "mike". As for "miced", it should be mic'd.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, though.
"Mike" has been the traditional spelling. "Mic" only started creeping in in the 60's
microphone | Etymology of microphone by etymonline
"ear trumpet for the hard-of-hearing," coined from Greek mikros "small" (see micro-) +… See origin and meaning of microphone.
www.etymonline.com
And what's the plural of mic? Mice?
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"Mike" has been the traditional spelling. "Mic" only started creeping in in the 60's
microphone | Etymology of microphone by etymonline
"ear trumpet for the hard-of-hearing," coined from Greek mikros "small" (see micro-) +… See origin and meaning of microphone.
And what's the plural of mic? Mice?
1961 that was 62 years ago! I'd say it's the norm today.
The plural of mic is mics.
Phonetically mic is pronounced "mike", but mic is what anyone in the recording industry uses.
I would argue that even if the original shortening of microphone was "mike", that today it is a well-established standard that "mic" is the abbreviation of choice. I doubt you'll find any pros or microphone companies using "mike".
The Guilds of Grot
Enlightened Member
Nice to see I am not alone!
I guess I've spent more formative time with Ham radio guys than recording studio folks.
From behind the NYT paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01-onlanguage-t.html
Ben Zimmer
The respondents on this one fell evenly into two camps: those like Reich who were unfamiliar with the shortening of microphone as mic and those like Estersohn who noted that mic is the prevailing form not just in rap circles but also among recording professionals more generally.
Mike came first, documented from the early days of radio. In the June 1923 issue of The Wireless Age, a photo caption of Samuel L. Rothafel (who was known as Roxy and who was broadcasting concert programs from New York's Capitol Theater) reads, "When you hear Roxy talk about 'Mike' he means the microphone." This suggests the abbreviation arose as a kind of nickname, playfully anthropomorphizing the microphone as Mike. But by 1926, when the pioneering broadcaster Graham McNamee published his book "You're on the Air," mike appeared in lowercase, not as a name. During broadcasts of baseball games, McNamee wrote, "the man at the 'mike' watches each play."
Mic didn't begin appearing in written works for another few decades, first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary in Al Berkman's 1961 "Singers' Glossary of Show Business Jargon." Berkman offered both mike and mic as possible clippings of microphone. Since then, mic has grown in popularity among those who work with recording equipment. The preference for mic likely stems from the way the abbreviation is rendered on the equipment itself: a microphone might be labeled "Mic No. 1," for instance. And if you're in the market for a microphone preamplifier, you'll find it written as "mic preamp."
It makes sense, then, that the early rappers of the South Bronx, intimately familiar with the sound systems that powered their performances, would take to the mic spelling. It also explains why The Associated Press Stylebook earlier this year reversed its advice to abbreviate microphone as mike. As the stylebook's editors told the American Copy Editors Society in April, the A.P.'s broadcast division was unhappy with mike, and so the entry was revised to recommend mic instead.
Some of the copy editors voiced objections to the A.P.'s amended edict, on the grounds that mic could confuse readers who might be tempted to pronounce it as "mick." The Washington Post's Bill Walsh pressed the stylebook editors on the verb form: is a person mic'ed or miked? The A.P. style gurus allowed that the verb could be miked, even if the noun is mic.
The grumbling over mic emerges from its seeming violation of English pronunciation rules. Bicycle is abbreviated as bike, after all, not bic. But we do occasionally allow a mismatch between the spelling of an abbreviation and how it looks like it ought to be pronounced. Vegetable is shortened to veg, and Reginald to Reg, but the final g is not a "hard" one as in peg or leg. So let the musicians and broadcasters have their mic, but as for me, I still like mike.
____________________________
And of course, Les Paul used "mike" and that's good enough for me
From behind the NYT paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01-onlanguage-t.html
How Should ‘Microphone’ be Abbreviated?
Ben Zimmer
- July 29, 2010
The respondents on this one fell evenly into two camps: those like Reich who were unfamiliar with the shortening of microphone as mic and those like Estersohn who noted that mic is the prevailing form not just in rap circles but also among recording professionals more generally.
Mike came first, documented from the early days of radio. In the June 1923 issue of The Wireless Age, a photo caption of Samuel L. Rothafel (who was known as Roxy and who was broadcasting concert programs from New York's Capitol Theater) reads, "When you hear Roxy talk about 'Mike' he means the microphone." This suggests the abbreviation arose as a kind of nickname, playfully anthropomorphizing the microphone as Mike. But by 1926, when the pioneering broadcaster Graham McNamee published his book "You're on the Air," mike appeared in lowercase, not as a name. During broadcasts of baseball games, McNamee wrote, "the man at the 'mike' watches each play."
Mic didn't begin appearing in written works for another few decades, first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary in Al Berkman's 1961 "Singers' Glossary of Show Business Jargon." Berkman offered both mike and mic as possible clippings of microphone. Since then, mic has grown in popularity among those who work with recording equipment. The preference for mic likely stems from the way the abbreviation is rendered on the equipment itself: a microphone might be labeled "Mic No. 1," for instance. And if you're in the market for a microphone preamplifier, you'll find it written as "mic preamp."
It makes sense, then, that the early rappers of the South Bronx, intimately familiar with the sound systems that powered their performances, would take to the mic spelling. It also explains why The Associated Press Stylebook earlier this year reversed its advice to abbreviate microphone as mike. As the stylebook's editors told the American Copy Editors Society in April, the A.P.'s broadcast division was unhappy with mike, and so the entry was revised to recommend mic instead.
Some of the copy editors voiced objections to the A.P.'s amended edict, on the grounds that mic could confuse readers who might be tempted to pronounce it as "mick." The Washington Post's Bill Walsh pressed the stylebook editors on the verb form: is a person mic'ed or miked? The A.P. style gurus allowed that the verb could be miked, even if the noun is mic.
The grumbling over mic emerges from its seeming violation of English pronunciation rules. Bicycle is abbreviated as bike, after all, not bic. But we do occasionally allow a mismatch between the spelling of an abbreviation and how it looks like it ought to be pronounced. Vegetable is shortened to veg, and Reginald to Reg, but the final g is not a "hard" one as in peg or leg. So let the musicians and broadcasters have their mic, but as for me, I still like mike.
____________________________
And of course, Les Paul used "mike" and that's good enough for me
fronobulax
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As I read the article you posted. mic seems to be preferred in music and recording circles. Since LTG has more in common with those than ham radio (although @GAD (at least) dabbles in both) it seems like mic is also to be be preferred on LTG and to insist otherwise approaches the pedantic.
This is not new among certain types of geeks. You can start fights today in high tech areas by pronouncing GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). If the geeks are old enough to remember when Digital Equipment Corporation made computers and their Vax series had a big chunk of the market then you can start another fight by asking "what the plural of Vax is?".
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I've been a ham since 1995 and I don't recall seeing anything other than "mic" so I decided to see what I could find. Here's the back of my Yaesu FT2000:
Here's an old Kenwood TS430S (not mine, but I used to have one):
To be fair those are all post-1961, so I looked around for 1950s rigs and found this:
I finally did find one with a "mike" label (man I love these old rigs):
So it looks like I'm too young to remember, which works for me. I love being too young for stuff.
Please don't get me riled up again. I have thoughts about GIF and I used to support Vax 11/780s and Microvax...es. I had a Microvax under my desk for my own nefarious purposes for years.
Just to follow the trend of this thread, this is pronounced "deck", as in DEC.
walrus
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Overthinking is my default state.
kitniyatran
Senior Member
Is it better to have over thought than to have never thought at all?