On rocking the mic

And so, in the revised entry for rock included in the O.E.D.’s June 2010 update, Melle Mel trumps Big Bank Hank as the earliest known M.C. to “rock the mic.” Though fresh evidence could always push the usage back even further, there’s a certain justice to setting the record straight, more than three decades after the fact. Historical lexicography? It rocks.

From Ben Zimmer’s July 5 piece in the New York Times, On Language: When Did We First ‘Rock the Mic’?.

Zimmer takes a look at the use of “rock” as a verb as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, and particularly it’s use in hip-hop.