ping (on)

[Paul McFedries]

Yes, "ping" is based on the submariner's term for a sonar pulse. Note that
the usage "ping on" is unusual. Saying "I'll go ping him right now" (without
the "on") sounds better.

Paul
http://www.authorboy.com/
http://www.wordspy.com/


> A computer science person that I work with fairly frequently used
> this term twice within a couple of minutes today, to mean "get in
> touch with" or "send a reminder to" a person.
>
> "I'll go ping on him right now to see if we can etc."
>
> This is based on "ping" as used in CS to mean "send a signal to a
> computer/component to get a response."
>
> Does this, in turn, come from radar/sonar technology?