Buzz
If you forget your microphone is switched on and accidentally say something embarrassing, do you have a ‘hot mike’ issue or a ‘hot mic’ issue? When attending a performance, do you go to ‘open mike night’ or ‘open mic night’? After delivering a sharp comeback, do you drop ‘the mike’ or ‘the mic’?
The initial abbreviation for microphone, from as far back as 1927, was mike, but over the past two decades or so, mic has gradually overtaken mike in popularity. This shift has left some people quite displeased.
Musician Samuel Bayer has been vocal for over 12 years, describing his ongoing ‘tirade’ against the use of mic as the abbreviation for microphone. A staunch supporter of mike, he has followed both sides of the debate with a balanced and thorough approach.
The issue with mic is that it doesn’t follow the usual pattern of matching abbreviations to pronunciations. Mic, similar to words like tic, hic, sic, and the abbreviation pic, looks like it should be pronounced ‘mick.’ If we want it to sound like ‘mike,’ the spelling should reflect that, as we normally do. For example, we have Coke, not COC(a-cola), nuke, not NUC(lear), fave, not FAV(orite), fridge, not (re)FRIG(erator), and for words ending in ‘ic,’ we have bike, not BIC(ycle), and delish, not (DELICious).
An added complication arises when it’s used as a verb. When someone is setting up your microphone, are they micing you? Are you then miced? No one wants to be covered in mice. Even the most dedicated mic supporters don’t go that far, opting for terms like miking and miked, or mic’ing and mic’d instead. This, once again, doesn’t align with the usual abbreviation conventions.
In 2010, the AP style guide adopted this split approach, approving mic for the noun while retaining miked for the verb. Ben Zimmer’s New York Times column on this change explains that despite early writers’ preference for mike, mic—originating as a printed label on sound equipment—was adopted by sound engineers in the 60s and later embraced by rappers, eventually becoming the standard.
Dictionaries still list both mic and mike as acceptable forms, but currently, a Google search returns 18 times as many results for “open mic” compared to “open mike.” In 2003, the ratio was just 3 to 1. The trend is clear. And it seems the writing is on the mixing board too.
