I NEED TO MAKE IT OFFICIAL

[jingle_jangle]

After spending time on several other (mostly Fender) forums, I realized that every fracking body over there spells the various forms of the regular verb "to relic", WRONG. "Relicing" is not a word.

It's

to relic
have relicked
is relicking

and so on...

Oxford English is no help at all, except to inform us that "re-licked" means licked more than one time (as a lollipop).

Thanks for letting me blow off some Fender steam.

[antipodean]

I always thought "relicing" had occurred when your kids came back from school with their second case of nits....

[cjj]

It's difficult, when a noun undergoes verbification and becomes a neologism...

[rickenbrother]

I've always found using "relicing" a bit disturbing, kind of like what Evan mentioned. Thanks for clarifying that.

Fender steam, huh?

[jingle_jangle]

I think the precedent here was set by the spelling of such verb/nouns as "panic". NOBODY says, "panicing".

[jwilli]

Ho0w about "relic'd"? "Relic-d"? "Relicked" just doesn't look right. An even better idea is to ban the word from this Forum, ha. Nobody should have their Rickenbacker relicked or relic'd. Shouldn't have been licked in the first place!

[fireglo67]

Ho0w about "relic'd"? "Relic-d"? "Relicked" just doesn't look right. An even better idea is to ban the word from this Forum, ha. Nobody should have their Rickenbacker relicked or relic'd. Shouldn't have been licked in the first place!

+1 for Relic'd.

[electrofaro]

I still opt for reliqued... makes linguistically more sense!

But... ...there's nothing like relicking a smooth neck!

[fireglo67]

I still opt for reliqued... makes linguistically more sense!

But... ...there's nothing like relicking a smooth neck!

Such a cunning linguist!

[jingle_jangle]

Panic=panicked. Look it up.

So, relic=relicked.

Some of us are just not accustomed to seeing it spelled correctly.

To "lick again" is hyphenated: re-licked. That, too, was in my dictionary. My dog re-licked my face...she re-licked the envelope...

Relic'd implies a contraction of "relicked".

I remember journalists (wordsmiths!) trying to pluralize the name of a GM conceptcar, the Corvette Indy of 1986.

I saw "Indies" and "Indy's". Both wrong.

The correct form (according to grammatical rules for proper names, different from other nouns), was "Indys". This looked wrong, too, but it was correct.

[cjj]

OK, "relicked" it is. And since Ricks are so yummy, let's hope people only consider re-licking them and the only relicking comes from honest use. That way we can spend out time reliking them (yeah, that should probably be re-liking) all over again...

[jingle_jangle]

I don't know why I feel the need to nail this one down and convince anyone. I'm usually pretty much "let people do what they want" (except with Juliana, who needs a bit of reason in her busy life)...but this, more than any other language issue, bugs me at the moment.

So, I've convinced one person. OK, cjj--it's up to you to spread the gospel troof...

[teb]

I personally prefer "uglified"or "poser-ized". On the other hand, it does make the job of the guy who buffs out the finish a lot easier....Oops, went all the way through to bare wood again.....

[jingle_jangle]

I personally prefer "uglified"or "poser-ized". On the other hand, it does make the job of the guy who buffs out the finish a lot easier....Oops, went all the way through to bare wood again.....

I wish my thought processes were half as clear, Todd! I am inclined to get all distracted by spelling, like "poseur"...

[jingle_jangle]

What's additionally annoying is the speed with which so-called "relics" have gained acceptance (or "struck a chord", so to speak...).

Confession time: I recently bought a Fender Jag relic. The price was sooo cheap--less than the cost of the parts, which were all genuine Fender, except the homebuilt body and neck. Also, my curiosity got the best of me. It looked absolutely super in the photos, so I Paypalled the seller (who also built it) and a week later unpacked it in my office. From six feet (or in photos, apparently) it was a totally convincing '64 Jaguar that had seen just enough use to be intriguing. The closer I got, however, the nastier it looked...the body had not been fine-sanded before painting, you could see overspray in the burst, and the new chromed parts had too obviously been scrubbed with a Scotchbrite pad. The mint green pickguard had been dirtied in a very amateurish way. The radius on the body edges was all wrong, the surfaces themselves were full of tooling marks, and the handmade neck's profile was wrong--virtually flat on the back, with uneven contouring and rasp marks in places.

I struggled with it (philosophically) for awhile and finally broke it up for project parts. It played very well and sounded great. But I couldn't understand why anyone would do this. Then I realized--in order for a relic to be convincing, one has to start with a perfectly good new guitar. So there are two skills and philosophies that are about as schizoid as could be, required to construct a well-done relic:

1. The skill to build a beautiful, factory-quality new guitar to a high standard.

2. The "skill" to destroy the above in a short time, while making it look like it happened over decades.

At Fender, Gibson, etc., it's done in teams, not by a single individual from cradle to grave.

So, homebuilt relics are most often done by people who can't achieve anything like factory quality, and use relicking as a shortcut, as Todd mentions above in his last sentences.

Now I'm clearer on my own revulsion's motivations, but even less satisfied, because I've lost even more respect for relics.

However, who could deny the poignant beauty of:

The real thing.