Madman Muntz and TV

[Mark Mandel]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky
<zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> On Aug 26, 2008, at 9:44 AM, Mark Mandel wrote:
>> Call letters are assigned by the FCC, and there can be AM, FM, and
>> television stations with the same call letters in the same market. The
>> suffix is very helpful in distinguishing these media for publicity and
>> publication (see cites below), but I don't believe it's an official
>> part of the call letters. Unless the "TV" part of the name is
>> explicitly attested, I wouldn't call either of those an antedate.
>
> agreed.  but note that Ben Zimmer merely suggested that the station
> names might have *had a big influence* on the use of "TV".
>
> so the question is when uses of "TV" as a noun (a mass noun for the
> medium, a count noun meaning 'television set') appeared.

Ah. Yes, conceded.

--
Mark Mandel

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