Session 4: Open mic

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

13 March

When I first saw this - rather punctilious? - qualification of a perfectly sound abbreviation used, I could not quite believe that anyone would want to draw the derivation from the word 'microphone' into such stark relief: I was almost as amazed* as if someone had said to me that it had to be rendered thus, otherwise the unwary might be expecting (or fearing) that a candid man called Michael would be very frank with them**, and they would accordingly flock to (or abandon) the venue in droves.

In my view, this inadequacy of good explanation for something foolish equates to believing that, to avoid confusion, the term 'train station' is a necessary substitution for just 'station'. Besides which, it would follow that anyone called Mike would - because The Name Police would insist obedience or prosecution - have to start styling his name 'Mic', too, 'to throw up' that it shortens 'Michael'; similarly, anyone using the name Mick would have to prove that he had that name from when his birth had been registered, otherwise it would have to become Mich in written form.

Jack, too, should be outlawed, unless the bearer can show that he has borne that name since birth: it is a kid or pet name for John, and anyone called John should be called by that name***.
Oh, and, by the way, Norman Tebbit obviously urged the unemployed to get 'on your bic'!


End-notes

* Possibly akin to the sense of the word in which the shepherds apprehended events 'on Bethlehem Down'.

** Either that, or - perhaps - a huge game of Operation with a patient called Mike.

*** As for Tobacco O'Rourke, well he's just beyond redemption!


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here