[Ads-l] Early Edison "bug" letter for auction

[Jesse Sheidlower]

Much ink has been spilled about Grace Hopper's 1947 note "First actual case of bug being found" in a relay in the Mark II calculator. Here is an exactly identical reference in a letter from Thomas Edison, among the very earliest users of _bug_ 'defect or fault in a machine', a letter which can be yours today for a price estimated at $10,000 - $20,000.

1878 T. Edison _Letter_ 3 Mar., I did find a "bug" in my apparatus, but it was not in the telephone proper. It was of the genus "callbellum." The insect appears to find conditions for its existence in all call apparatus of telephones. 

https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=2470++++++41+&refno=++743398&saletype=

Jesse Sheidlower

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org