well if we are delving into pedantry, natural language is spoken; we learn our native language as pre-literate children and we already have our vocabulary stored in our brains with phonetic features way before we learn to read and write. Orthography is thus but a facsimile of our language.

We exchange and learn new words primarily by hearing them, and I'll bet "drop the mike" was first uttered out loud by a comedian/entertainer type, and to say that it even had a spelling is an unjustified leap.