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

Mon Dec 26 02:12:39 UTC 2022

I notice that the poem Fred sent us to document "ham" opens with the lines
I am the wandering Ham.
I know no home, I know no roost.
To me each knock is one more boost.

This seems to be an instance of another way of expressing the thought
"there's no such thing as bad publicity".

In 2001, it seems, I took part in a discussion here of that expression.  At
that time, I wrote
"This is one of those expressions that are so highly variable in form that
they
are very difficult to trace.  I associate it with show business, and in that
racket, publicity is always good.  The expression can be phrased either as
an
affirmative or a negative: "there's no such thing as bad publicity" (or a
variant) as opposed to "all publicity is good publicity" / "every knock is a
boost" (or other variants).

I remember, c. 1970, Sam Silverman, a boxing promoter based in Boston,
being quoted as saying "every knock is a boost", and I rather doubt that he
was coining the phrase.

GAT

On Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 12:00 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> See also the Wikipedia entry for "etymology of ham radio," which includes
> cites for the telegraphic kind of "ham operator" back to 1881:
>
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Etymology-5Fof-5Fham-5Fradio&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=XQK-vn2suIwWn6CmpI3g-5Mrk1AMPxZzVrOfxLyyIj0&e=
>
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.newspapers.com_clip_49016206_a-2Dtalk-2Dwith-2Da-2Dtelegrapher-2Dabout_&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=6mOYudN4Rer7sb3RM-mUCEgZxzcFTikyS74N8HtYtd4&e=
> "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://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__earlyradiohistory.us_1902slng.htm&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=p1TILWNMGbu_hijKT83Go3ZoAVrspJY52taJtboMrso&e=
> > 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://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__earlyradiohistory.us_1915ama.htm&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=rlK0jpaQn_ml5XdRDNutm0RytThnwzS5AFM458Q_44E&e=
> > 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://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__earlyradiohistory.us_1909wr2.htm&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=5VUXNdx3zSe3ccTtjuu1Q33an6_kNNu69ZJ17N7GkSQ&e=
> > 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://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__earlyradiohistory.us_1909ama.htm&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=8eOUmZrfhnQVXzKfHUTtDlOY1_JI65CNJ92YZYrDEUg&e=
> >, in the April, 1909 Electrician
> > and Mechanic, and The Amateur Wireless Operator<
> >
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__earlyradiohistory.us_1910ama.htm&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=xj4HWQm0PoQaKIV4-Tk4Hpjky0dWJXW7VS9s6VFWkAQ&e=
> >, 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://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__earlyradiohistory.us_1919why.htm&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=I0BK_87eXPPoGEIUT5JV4uH-9sh33NDXVTGt1W1QtLI&e=
> >, 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://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__earlyradiohistory.us_1920pome.htm&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=P1yxL4jCu6ufAn4gObB7WI6OV9O18-csriZXbRYk3h4&e=
> >,
> > showed that other amateurs had already embraced "ham" as a friendly
> > description for their fellow hobbyists.
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society -
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=DwIBaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v2Wtu7DQZxSBMSJv-oEMNg&m=JvxHGJyyTopfBU7rnqKSum0E-8EImzCsamlOpbWDU6wcbyumZEUNwj-kE2rchX9M&s=GSCjcdUW4zTLzSvx7ABE2XIa3dB8ZF68V6NqlbSuMYg&e=
>

-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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