"chad"--a possible origin

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>... the word 'chat' for the gravel that is used in resurfacing country
>roads in that area.  The chat comes from steel mills in northeast Texas
>that process locally mined iron ore. ... So, in some areas ... 'chat' as
>gravel is well known and the Scottish term not known at all.

This is what Hendrickson referred to, more or less: mining refuse used on
roads. I think in etymological speculation, an exact match generally should
be preferred: score 1 for "chad" = "gravel". But an English word should be
preferred over a Scots word: score 1 for "chat". I tend to trust MW more
than I do Hendrickson (who dates the word "chad" to the late 1960's!): 1
for "chad". But after all, I'm not sure that these two words for gravel are
really distinct!

DARE gives "chat" = "gravelly tailings from mines", and some of the
quotations indicate that "chat" is a corruption of "chert" -- but I'm not
sure this is substantiated, and "chert" itself is of mysterious origin.

The "English Dialect Dictionary" (Joseph Wright, ed.; Oxford, 1961) shows
"chad" = "gravel"/"riverbed stones" (Scotland, East Anglia) and also  =
"chaff" (in food) (Norfolk, East Anglia).

The EDD also gives "chat" = (1) "catkin" [hazel, maple], (2) "key" [ash,
sycamore], (3) "fir-cone", (5) "chip of wood", (7) "small inferior potato",
(8) "small piece of coal", (9) "piece of stone blended with lead ore" [like
the "chat" in DARE], etc. -- but notes that this word "chat" also occurs as
"chad" (Yorkshire, Derbyshire)!

All of these refer to small objects occurring in heaps ... just like
punch-card or punch-tape chad(s).

Several of the above would give credible origins for "chad" = "punched
paper chip(s)".

["Chat" refers to a bunch of other things, including lice, birds (DARE
gives "chat" and "chad" as bird names), kittens, etc., etc., and -- of
course -- like about 100,000 other words -- the female sex organ (cf.
French "chat").]

Note that "chad" is a very common word, perhaps virtually a recognition
signal, among teletype hobbyists as evidenced in -- e.g. -- the "Greenkeys"
archive at a ham radio site on the Web, with maybe 200 instances of "chad":
here's one page which includes the imaginary (?) fountain statue of a "nude
maiden pouring chads", no doubt a symbol of the brotherhood:

http://www.qth.net/archive/greenkeys/199904/19990403.html

There are also light or jocular references to inhaling chad by accident,
smoking chad like marijuana, using chad as confetti, etc. The chad here is
from punched tape.

Here is a case where someone opines that "chad" may come from the UK (not
convincing/conclusive at all, but I haven't seen any contrary geographic
speculation):

http://squeak.cs.uiuc.edu/mail/squeak/msg01818.html

But as we see from the EDD, the exact provenance of the word cannot be
established simply by assumption of British origin anyway.

-- Doug Wilson