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Miking vs. micing


Brandon Pert

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This topic has been discussed on numerous other forums but I see these. On words used all of the time on jwsound so I thought I'd post.

I hope this doesn't come off nitpicky, but micing, mic-ed, mic'ed are all not actual words. While they have become commonplace all over the web, a search in the Merriam-Webster dictionary shows that the transitive verb for microphone is mike. As in, I need to mike the actor, or the talent has been miked, or I am almost done miking the talent.

I may be crazy but when I see the word 'micing' I think of little furry rodents. of course he word mic is a common abbreviation for the noun and is acceptable.

Hope this clears things up for some of you. I'd also love to hear from people that I am wrong or right. Is this non-word a pet peeve for anyone else or am I alone on this?

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In the big scheme of things it means little how it is spelled as long as it's meaning is understood by the person reading it. Mike sounds like a person when I read it in print, mic looks like an abbreviation of the word microphone through my eyes and brain. I see no rodents or creatures. Personally I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.

CrewC

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I compeletely agree that it doesn't really matter either way, I just was just more curious if people are even aware of the issue.. Mic is correct as an abbreviation of the noun. When used as a verb mike is the proper word. Yes it doesn't really matter as you can usually determine the meaning through the context anyways.

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FWIW, fellow JWSound member Jim Feeley and I went through this two decades ago, when he was editing and I was writing for DV Magazine, and revisited it when I wrote my first book. IFAIK it's since become standard at the various publishers we've infected.

Totally agree:

mic - noun, a device that converts sound waves to electrical

mic - verb, to mount one of them things on an actor

miked - past tense of mic (verb)

miking - present tense of mic (verb)

milking - something you do with a cow

micing - to turn something into a mouse; similar to "dicing" food when you cut it into small pieces

"mouse milking" - my wife's phrase for making subframe edits to repair dialog.

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mic - noun, a device that converts sound waves to electrical

mic - verb, to mount one of them things on an actor

miked - past tense of mic (verb)

miking - present tense of mic (verb)

This will be my new standard. I used to go with mic'd and micing, but it never seemed to make much sense to me.

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In the big scheme of things it means little how it is spelled as long as it's meaning is understood by the person reading it. Mike sounds like a person when I read it in print, mic looks like an abbreviation of the word microphone through my eyes and brain. I see no rodents or creatures.

Personally I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.

CrewC

or lose any either?

Eric

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