"to ping" (and OED Online)

[Jonathan Lighter]

I can't swear to this, but I seem to recall one of her guests chiding
Crowley gently for  misusing "ping" so gratuitously.

Or maybe it was me.

But isn't "contact," once on the cutting edge of despised verbs, good
enough for today's middle-aged persons?

JL


On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "to ping" (and OED Online)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On March 16 Victor noted:
>
> Oxford Dictionaries OL (not OED) has an interesting one for ping:
> "Contact a person briefly (especially electronically): he just pinged
> me, pointing to a breaking news story "
>
> And this is an extension of the sense offered beginning March 14:
>
> "To ping" -- to signal in an attempt to make a remote communications
> connection.  (Moi)
>
> As a verb, _ping_ means "to get the attention of" or "to check for the
> presence of" another party on line. The computer acronym (for Packet
> Internet or Inter-Network Groper) was contrived to match the submariners'
> term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse.  (WhatIs.com, via Wilson)
>
> (Should we call the locating device the "Giant Toad Pinger Groper"?)
>
> Joel
>
> At 4/8/2014 08:37 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >_Ping_: 'to inquire of.'
> >
> >CNN's _State of the Nation_ (March 16, 2014)
> >
> >
> https://archive.org/details/CNNW_20140316_130000_State_of_the_Union_With_Candy_Crowley#start/780/end/840
> :
> >
> >CANDY CROWLEY:  I did talk to a source at the CIA yesterday, and he said
> >we're pinging everybody we know. You know, we're pinging agencies that we
> >work with, we're pinging sources.
>
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