[Ads-l] glitch (1940)

[Peter Reitan]

An intriguing use of Glitch in radio advertising during the same period.

The name "Throckmorton Glitch" appears as the name of an advertising 
executive in two apparently unrelated humorous stories, by two different 
authors, in two different publications, separated by more than a decade.

In a 1929 story in a Madison, Wisconsin newspaper, an advertising 
executive by that name pitches ads for colored Dromedary cigarettes, 
each color representing a different mood.  At the end of the story there 
is reference to a product called "ZoZo for bedbugs", which I read as an 
oblique reference to Sozodont toothpaste.  In a 1942 story in 
Broadcasting Magazine, an executive named "Throckmorton Glitch" hires a 
radio advertising firm to create a campaign for his "cockroach paste."

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/59828971/the-capital-times/
https://archive.org/stream/broadcasting24unse#page/n258/mode/1up

No obvious connection to the word, but it is interesting that the same 
character name comes up in radio advertising, which is where the early 
examples of "glitch" appear, at about the same time the word first 
appears in print; and that the name had been used in separate 
advertising stories more than a decade apart.  Similarities in the name 
and story suggest the name may have been a common hypothetical 
advertising executive in occasional use in the industry throughout the 
1930s.

------ Original Message ------
From: dave at wilton.net
To: ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu
Sent: 9/23/2020 6:09:03 AM
Subject: glitch (1940)

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       dave at WILTON.NET
>Subject:      glitch (1940)
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>
>Older emails on this list have it from 1948. Again, more evidence that the
>general sense precedes the technical, electrical engineering sense. Also,
>both this and the 1948 instance are from radio, which shows a crossover path
>from the general to the engineering sense.
>
>Brush, Katherine. "Out of My Mind" (syndicated column). Miami Herald, 19 May
>1940, G2. NewsBank: America's Historical Newspapers.
>
>"When the radio talkers make a little mistake in diction they call it a
>'fluff,' and when they make a bad one they call it a 'glitch,' and I love
>it."
>
>
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