Until recently, every time I've seen an abbreviation of the word microphone it has been spelled mike. Over the last couple of years I've noticed that the more common abbreviation here has become mic instead. Have others noticed this? Any idea when and why the change happened?

I, too, had noticed this, arnie. Probably because folks baulk at writing mike as an abbreviation of microphone. I've never seen mic for mike when talking about micrograms, though. I hesitate likewise when writing sync for synchronization; I want to write synch, but it looks funny.

I can't stand either "mic" or "sync". By themselves I suppose they aren't so bad, but the ugliness really shows when you add some suffixes. I think "miced", "micing", "synced", and "syncing" look far inferior to "miked", "miking", "synched", and "synching". Because I use the latter two quite frequently in my writing, I almost always use "synch".

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I think "miced", "micing", "synced", and "syncing" look far inferior

It's not just a matter of "look".

In mic, etc. the c-sound is hard, pronounced like a k. But when a c is followed by an e or an i (as in miced or micing), the usual rule is to give it the soft sound, like an s. Thus for these words, adding the suffix -ed or -ing would change the c-sound from hard to soft.

Any verb ending in c presents this problem, and the usual solution is to insert a k before the suffix. Thus, for example, picnic becomes picnicked and picnicking. But that solution won't work with mic: if you spelled the past tense as micking, you'd convert the vowel-sound from a long i to a short i

I suppose logically we ought to start seeing bic and tric for bicycle and tricycle. This is one occasion when I'm glad that the English language isn't logical!

Though the noun be an abbreviation, "the M.C.", the verb is spelled out "to emcee". (Called a compere in the UK, I believe.)

We use MC, too (in full, Master of Ceremonies). Compere is used, but seems vaguely old-fashioned, to my eye/ear, at least. It reminds me of 1950s radio shows.

seems vaguely old-fashioned, to my eye/ear

In my ear, BBC announcers still use RP.

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I've never seen mic for mike when talking about micrograms...

Hmmm...micrograms of what, Z.?

Hmmm...micrograms of what, Z.?

Pounds shillings and pence. Purely in the interest of linguistics.

"Mike" for "microphone" looks better to me than "mic," which I want to pronounce "mick." Now that I've read this entire thread, I think I'll stop using the shortened forms, except when I sync my PDA, which is never, because it's dead.


Wordmatic