hubba-hubba and symbols

[Rudolph C Troike]

First, re hubba-hubba, it certainly became very popular during WWII, and
for me always had a South Seas flavor. American operations began in the
South Pacific and involved much more contact with Polynesians and other
Austronesian groups than Chinese. Reduplication is a common characteristic
of all Austronesian languages. I have no idea what a possible etymon might
be from which of the many possible contact languages, but it seems to me
that this might be a more productive area in which to look rather than
Chinese, which seems most unlikely.
        Second, on symbols being transmitted. I was delighted to see a
gamma show up on the screen the other night and had intended to ask how
anyone had contrived it, but was disappointed to learn tonight that it had
been intended as a c-cedilla (this is how Alice Fabers's comes through to
me). Similarly her pound sign shows up for me as an accented "u". I read
messages on Pine here at Arizona, which we access via telnet using Lynx, a
text-only browser, from a PC (though I doubt if a Mac would make any
difference). I suspect anyone using Pine at any university would have this
problem.

        Rudy