Joystick

[Michael Quinion]

Tom Zeller was kind enough to mention me in the New York Times
yesterday in a piece about the origins of "joystick":

 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/weekinreview/05zeller.html?hp

but he once again repeats the tale that the word derives from the
name of its inventor. He elaborates the story to a "Missouri pilot
and inventor, James Henry Joyce", hence "Joyce stick".

My attempts some months ago to find this inventive aviator failed -
the Science Museum in London and other aviation sources had no record
of him. I had assumed that we have here yet another folk etymology,
an unreal intersection of Henry James and James Joyce. Unlike Mr
Joyce, I'm not from Missouri, but I still need to be shown something
tangible before I accept he exists.

Has anyone come across him?

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <wordseditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>