chatter

[Mark Mandel]

That's not the same word, though: "chat" + productive agentive suffix
"-er", rather than lexical noun "chatter" incorporating repetitive "-er"
and referring to an activity or the noise produced by it.

Mark Mandel


On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 9:22 AM, David Barnhart <dbarnhart at highlands.com>wrote:

> Chatter is found in ANW 74.3 (1999) meaning "participant in an online
> bulletinboard" (I suspect not the sense meant hear, see the quote):
>
> 1997 Nov 17 Jim Pawlak _Detroit Free Press_ 12F/1 Real-time "conversation"
> allows chatters to share problems, give opinions, vent, ask question and
> get
> answers.
>
> DKB
>
> barnhart at highlands.com
>
> Wilton wrote:
> "Chatter" has been around signals intelligence community for quite some
> time, long before the internet became a thing. My guess is that "radio
> chatter" would be the original, going back to WWII, if not earlier. I've
> turned up a few instances of "chatter" used in connection with radio
> transmissions in Tom Clancy's 1986 "Red Storm Rising" and his 1988
> "Cardinal
> of the Kremlin." I'm sure antedatings can be easily found.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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