One-Question Poll: Abbreviating "Microphone"

[rsadelle]

Comments

[dedalvs]

I've never seen it written "mike".

[rsadelle]

It's apparently quite the debate: WikiAnswers, Poetz.com.

[dedalvs]

The discussion of the first reminds me of something that came about in World of Warcraft. A given character has a talent specification which is unique, and is decided upon by the player. As it affects gameplay considerable, players talk about their various specifications a lot. No one, though, of course, ever types (or even says) "specification", though; they exclusively say "spec".

The problems occur when these need to be modified, e.g. "How are you [spec + ed]?", or "What are you [spec + ing] into?" For the first, I've seen the following: spect, speced, specked, specced, spec'ed, and even spec'ced and speck't. The latter is even tougher: specing, speccing, specking, spec'ing, spec'cing... There doesn't seem to be any consensus winner at all. Instead, it's just very, very awkward. Situations like these sometimes don't resolve themselves (consider how, even after five hundred years, it's still awkward to decide whether to use "you", "they", "one" or "he or she" in impersonal animate situations).

[dedalvs]

Groan... "Considerably." If you have the power to edit, can you edit that and then delete this one?

[allegram]

No vote because I actually avoid abbreviating microphone in writing because "Mike" is clearly wrong but I"m uncomfortable with just writing "mic" and thinking people will read it as "mike" not an old racial slur...

Seriously I say "mike" but won't write it cause everytime I try I end up with grammatical angst....

[rsadelle]

Ah, but my character totally abbreviates it. And he's (more or less) a musician, which seems to make the "mic" spelling more appropriate.

[rsadelle]

Also, I was trying to avoid it, but I ran out of ways to talk around the mic without it sounding weird and stilted.