"Gyro" at Chicago's Parthenon Restaurant

[Victoria Neufeldt]

What a terrific story.  (Two, actually.  I had no idea about this origin of
call letters.  I suppose many radio stations were originally owned by
newspapers.)

Did anyone ever write McCormick's biography?  Or did he write his memoirs?
Either would probably be interesting reading.

Victoria
Merriam-Webster, Inc. P.O. Box 281
Springfield, MA 01102
Tel: 413-734-3134  ext 124
Fax: 413-827-7262

On Monday, June 12, Mike Salovesh wrote:
> >
> >    The Chicago Tribune did a series on the city's top ten
> restaurants, by > type.  The top Greek restaurant was Parthenon.
> From the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 27 > May 1971, section 2, pg. 19:
>
> "Colonel" Robert McCormick, the long-time owner of the Chicago Tribune,
> was a dedicated supporter of a program of spelling reform that came out
> of his own little head.  "Thoroly" is of a piece with many of his
> creations.  As owner of what he insisted on advertising as "The World's
> Greatest Newspaper", he would amend the Trib's style book whenever the
> whim hit him.  His "reformed" spellings aren't the only examples of his
> idiosyncrasies that survive him at the Trib, but they surely are, quite
> literally, the most visible.
>
> -- mike salovesh                    <salovesh at niu.edu>
> PEACE !!!
>
> P.S.:  Your TV cable system probably has another example, if it brings
> in "superstation" WGN-TV.  The call letters "WGN" were Col. McCormick's
> way of advertising the Tribune on the radio station he also owned.
>
> "WGN" got its name as an abbreviation of "World's Greatest Newspaper".
>
> If you ever run out of things to do, it might be fun to find the sources
> of other radio and TV call letters.  The Chicago Tribune wasn't the only
> newspaper to shape the call letters of an associated radio station.
> There's WTMJ, for "The Milwaukee Journal", for example. (Since U.S.
> stations generally begin with either "W" or "K", the first letter
> sometimes isn't a signifier. Viz: KQED.)
>