"to ping" (and OED Online)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, Ben.

JL


On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 1:48 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "to ping" (and OED Online)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> You're probably remembering this bit, from their aviation expert John
> Goglia:
>
> http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1403/16/sotu.01.html
> GOGLIA: -- the signaling device that's located on the unit has about a
> 30 day battery. So it's going to ping. And I hate to use that word,
> because it's been so misused recently.
> CROWLEY: Right.
>
>
> > But isn't "contact," once on the cutting edge of despised verbs, good
> > enough for today's middle-aged persons?
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> 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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