[Ads-l] Antedating of "Ham" (Telegraphy / Radio Meaning)

[Ben Zimmer]

See also the Wikipedia entry for "etymology of ham radio," which includes
cites for the telegraphic kind of "ham operator" back to 1881:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_ham_radio

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/49016206/a-talk-with-a-telegrapher-about/
"KNIGHTS OF THE KEY. A Talk With a Telegrapher About Impending Troubles --
Will They Strike?"
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 27, 1881, p. 4, col. 1
"Reporter -- Would a strike be successful? 'I believe if it becomes
necessary it will succeed. The only point we have to contend with is 'ham'
operators, -- men without ability to break stone on a road, who float into
the service, under the head of cheap labor and lose more money to the
company by making blunders than they can make in five years.' "


On Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 8:56 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> The Early Radio History website has the following discussion antedating
> OED "ham" n.1, 4., 1919).
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
> Ham. Amateur radio operators are often referred to as "hams" -- a term
> with a complicated history. At the start of the 1900s, "ham" was sometimes
> used to refer to someone as "unskilled" -- "Ham actor" being the most
> common example. Wire-line telegraphy employees at this time had a rich
> vocabulary of insults for describing less-than-capable operators, and in
> The Slang of the Wire<https://earlyradiohistory.us/1902slng.htm> section
> of "Telegraph Talk and Talkers", from the January, 1902 issue of McClure's
> Magazine, author L. C. Hall noted "It is an every-day thing to hear senders
> characterized as Miss Nancys, rattle-brains, swell-heads, or cranks, or
> 'jays,' simply because the sound of their dots and dashes suggests the
> epithets." Hall's review further noted that "senders of hog-Morse, called
> technically 'hams' " were known for their propensity for transmitting
> garbled Morse code. So it was natural, in light of wire-telegraph practice,
> for commercial stations to dismiss amateur radio operators as "hams"--and
> in Floods and Wireless<https://earlyradiohistory.us/1915ama.htm> by Hanby
> Carver from the August, 1915 Technical World Magazine the author noted
> "Then someone thought of the 'hams'. This is the name that the commercial
> wireless service has given to amateur operators..."
>
> But, interestingly, "ham" would eventually lose its negative meaning and
> become a general nickname for all amateurs. This evolution was spotty and
> not very well documented. As early as the May, 1909 Wireless Registry<
> https://earlyradiohistory.us/1909wr2.htm> list in Modern Electrics, Earl
> C. Hawkins of Minneapolis, Minnesota was listed with the callsign of
> "H.A.M." This callsign was likely assigned by the magazine -- this was
> before the U.S. government began licencing stations and issuing callsigns
> -- but was this an inside joke or just a coincidence? In two articles by
> Robert A. Morton, Wireless Interference<
> https://earlyradiohistory.us/1909ama.htm>, in the April, 1909 Electrician
> and Mechanic, and The Amateur Wireless Operator<
> https://earlyradiohistory.us/1910ama.htm>, in the January 15, 1910 The
> Outlook, the author included an overheard transmission between amateur
> stations asking "Say, do you know the fellow who is putting up a new
> station out your way? I think he is a ham." However, "ham" took a while to
> completely lose its negative connotations. A letter from Western Union
> employee W. L. Matteson in the December, 1919 issue of QST, Why is an
> Amateur?<https://earlyradiohistory.us/1919why.htm>, complained that
> amateurs, now regulated by the government, were not getting the respect
> they deserved, noting that "Many unknowing land wire telegraphers, hearing
> the word 'amateur' applied to men connected with wireless, regard him as a
> 'ham' or 'lid'." But in the next month's issue, Thomas Hunter's exuberant
> "pome", I am the Wandering Ham<https://earlyradiohistory.us/1920pome.htm>,
> showed that other amateurs had already embraced "ham" as a friendly
> description for their fellow hobbyists.
>
>

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