glitch antedated to 1948 [was 1955]

[Joel S. Berson]

This is intriguing -- the "figurative" sense of glitch (OED
"b.  Astronauts' slang. A hitch or snag; a malfunction.") now
precedes the concrete sense (OED "a. A surge of current or a spurious
electrical signal (see quots.)" -- although the OED extends sense a.
with "also, in extended use, a sudden short-lived irregularity in
behaviour", which some might claim fits the 1948 quotation.  Let
alone, in 1948, preceding astronauts' slang.

And of course "glitch, b." is no longer restricted to
astronauts.  The OED senses seem to need rearranging.

Joel

At 7/20/2010 01:45 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>1948  Ned Midgley _The Advertising and Business Side of Radio_
>(N. Y.: Prentice-Hall) 278: Usually most "glitches," as on-the-air mistakes
>are called, can be traced to a mistake on the part of the traffic
>department.
>
>This is from GB, so the page number may be wrong. However, the snippet is
>clear, looks like old-time typography, and the date "1948" is visible on the
>miniature title page.
>
>This tends to corroborate the Tony Randall's circumstantial recollection in
>1981 (in HDAS): "The first time I heard the word 'glitch' was in 1941...at
>WTAG [radio] (Worcester, Mass.). When an announcer made a mistake, that was
>called a "glitch" and had to be entered on the 'Glitch Sheet,' which was a
>mimeographed form. The older announcers told me the term had been used as
>long as they could remember.'"
>
>JL
>
>
>
>On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: glitch antedated to 1955
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Sensational antedating!
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> > Stephen Goranson [goranson at DUKE.EDU]
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 12:13 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >  Subject: glitch antedated to 1955
> >
> > OED and HDAS have glitch from 1962.
> >
> > Billboard Oct 15, 1955 p.4 col. 1-4
> > Bell Telephone System adv.
> > They talk of Pigeons and Glitch
> >
> > "Pigeons" are not birds to a Bell System technician. They are impulse
> > noises causing spots which seem to fly across the TV picture. And when he
> > talks of "glitch" with a fellow technician, he means a low frequency
> > interference which appears as a narrow horizontal bar moving vertically
> > through th picture....
> >
> >
> >
> http://books.google.com/books?id=CyMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA4&dq=glitch&hl=en&ei=QMhFTLP1FoKdlgfMtOG_BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=glitch&f=false
> >
> > Stephen Goranson
> > http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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