Faviconography

Three loosely related topics in this post:

A) Nancy Friedman at Away With Words has posted on a recent trend of bubbles popping up everywhere.

2) In a comment I mentioned favicons and she hadn't heard of them. Those are the little icons in the address bar that change on each webpage. They are often used as logos in toolbar button links. I've struggled with the pronunciation of these little visual gewgaws. Does the first syllable rhyme with save or with salve? Does the second syllable preserve the "long" 'I' of icon or does the third syllable get secondary stress so that the "I" is an unstressed schwa? Some possible pronunciations I imagine:

1. [ˈfej.vɪ.kan]/[ˈfej.və.kan](similar)


2. [ˈfej.ˌvaɪ.kan]


3. [fej.ˈvaɪ.kan]


4. [ˈfæ.vɪ.kan]/[ˈfæ.və.kan]

Number two is what I imagine most people say because it's the closest to the two words being combined: fave and icon. However it's an awkward rhythm because it puts two diphthongs together which draws a stress to both syllables but it's a little unsettling to have two near equal stresses right next to each other. It's packing a phrasal contour into one word. It feels awkward to me.

So if I didn't know what the etymology or meaning of the word was I would guess it was pronounced as #4. Perhaps this preference is by analogy: Rubicon opticon Farrakhan comicon decepticon...

Last)As I mentioned in my comment to Friedman's post I've been looking for a decent 'favicon' to associate with this blog. Just a little image that looks good in the address bar. For some reason one image keeps staring at me. But it has nothing to do with my usual topics and I don't know why I'd pick it.