[Ads-l] notes on "bingo"

[Ben Zimmer]

I wrote up my "bingo" research for my column in the Wall Street Journal
this week. Non-paywalled link:

https://on.wsj.com/3QNsJXE

On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 12:08 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> From Stephen L. Carter, "Why Supreme Court Watchers Are Making Bingo
> Jokes" (June 18, 2022), about the SCOTUS case Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo v.
> Texas, which "turned on whether the gaming machines operated by a tribe on
> its lands constituted a version of bingo":
>
> ---
>
> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-18/why-supreme-court-watchers-are-making-bingo-jokes
> The OED calls the origin of this sense of the word 'obscure' and attests
> the usage only to 1936. Actually, it’s older. An 1893 article in a Nebraska
> newspaper refers to bingo as an 'old reliable' game that is 'very popular'
> among ladies. Other citations around the same time confirm that by the end
> of the 19th century, the game had been around for a while.
> ---
>
> Here's the 1893 article in question:
>
> ---
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/103997316/old-reliable-bingo/
> Cuming County Advertiser (West Point, Neb.), Jan. 17 1893, p. 1, col. 2
> A farewell party was given at Krause's Hall last Friday evening... The
> program for the evening was: 1st. High Five in which forty people played;
> 2nd. the old reliable "Bingo," a game very popular among the W.P. ladies,
> or, taking the words of Pauline "the game among games." The circle
> consisted of thirty couples; 3rd the game which the boys are particularly
> "stuck" on, and especially when they are in the majority is "Miller." We
> had another siege of "Bingo" after "Miller" much to the displeasure of the
> boys, but the girls were in the majority and so what they said was a go.
> ---
>
> Carter is surely wrong that the 1893 article has anything to do with the
> later game of chance (besides the name). Rather, the article appears to
> describe a late 19th-century children's game involving rings of boys and
> girls singing the folk song "Bingo Was His Name-O." There was also a more
> grown-up version played at picnics and other social outings, sometimes
> involving kissing. See descriptions here:
>
>
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104019819/for-a-good-square-game-give-me-bingo/
> https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31186/31186-h/31186-h.htm#Page_27
> https://books.google.com/books?id=H-EYAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA502
>
> This "bingo" game was popular early on in Pennsylvania -- the earliest
> examples I've found date to 1877 (often mentioned alongside a similar game
> called "copenhagen"):
>
> ---
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104020203/dancing-bingo-copenhagen/
> Harrisburg (Pa.) Telegraph, Aug. 6, 1877, p. 1, col. 2
> ---
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104020339/the-cognomen-of-bingo/
> Philadelphia Times, Aug. 28, 1877, p. 4, col. 3
> ---
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104020356/one-christened-bingo/
> Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News, Sep. 10, 1877, p. 1, col. 6
> ---
>
> As for the game of chance, Barry Popik and Fred Shapiro have previously
> shared citations going back to 1923.
>
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2007-March/068256.html
>
> I've managed to antedate it further to Aug. 1922, when the game was
> evidently first popularized as a concession at carnivals, often using
> kernels of corn as markers (hence also known as "the corn game").
>
> ---
>
> https://archive.org/details/sim_billboard_1922-08-19_34_33/page/100/mode/1up?q=bingo
> The Billboard, Aug. 19, 1922, p. 100, col. 1
> "Pittsburg," by Lucile Dawson-Rex
> Louis and Mrs. Ellis, well-known concessioners, left the Dodson & Cherry
> Shows at New Kensington, Pa., and took their Bingo game over to the West
> Pennsylvania Volunteer Firemen's Convention celebration at West Homestead,
> Pa. They bought out the share of Chas. Jessup and now own the concession
> alone.
> ---
>
> https://archive.org/details/sim_billboard_1922-09-02_34_35/page/86/mode/1up?q=bingo
> The Billboard, Sep. 2, 1922, p. 86 (advt.)
> BINGO - CORN GAME - BINGO
> Over 300 sold to successful operators, with demand growing each week.
> BINGO is easy to operate, because of its simplicity, never failing to get a
> play, and is so arranged that with the detailed instructions I send you
> success is sure. Any sizes prizes can be used, and is as fast as Wheel.
> BINGO Cards are of 6-ply glazed, two color, 8x10. Including tags, all is
> complete.
> Thirty-five-player layouts..$5.00 Seventy-player layouts..$10.00
> Barnes, 1356 N. LaSalle St., Chicago, Ill.
> ---
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104020952/a-bingo-game/
> Florence (Kans.) Bulletin, Sep. 7, 1922, p. 1, col. 5
> The car is on display all the time on a truck among the concessions
> between Fourth and Fifth streets, and a Bingo game has added much interest
> to this feature.
> ---
>
> More examples clipped here:
>
> https://www.newspapers.com/clippings/?query=bingo&user=209457%3Abenzimmer&sort=paper-date-asc
>
> As later described in articles in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, Hugh J.
> Ward of Hazelwood, Pa. is credited with taking an earlier version of the
> game (sometimes called "keeno," "lotto," or -- in the UK and Canada --
> "housey-housey"), giving it new rules and christening it "bingo."
>
> ---
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104021601/pittsburgher-invented-bingo/
> Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, Nov. 22, 1935, p. 5
> "Pittsburgher Invented Bingo from Old Game"
> ---
>
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104020713/canadas-housey-housey-introduced-here/
> Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, Dec. 12, 1939, p. 11
> "Canada's Housey-Housey Introduced Here as Bingo"
> ---
>
> Here's one common origin story:
>
> ---
> https://blogs.loc.gov/copyright/2019/12/bingo/
> "Bingo!" by Alison Hall, Dec. 23, 2019
> Hugh J. Ward began running the game at carnivals in Pittsburgh and around
> western Pennsylvania in the early 1920s. Its popularity as a carnival game
> spread, and in 1929, toy merchandiser Edwin Lowe came across the game at a
> traveling carnival in Atlanta. The game followed Ward’s rules, but they
> called it Beano because they used dried beans as markers.
> Lowe took the game back to New York with him, and his friends found it
> just as fascinating as the carnival-goers had. He began to operate games in
> New York using the same equipment as the traveling carnival did.
> With Bingo’s popularity booming, Ward developed a home version of the
> game. He registered a copyright for the rulebook “Bingo” in 1933 and
> described it as “Bingo, a modern game adapted to commercial use, to
> advertise merchandise and to stimulate sales.” He did not, however, renew
> the copyright.
> ---
>
> In some versions of the story, Edwin Lowe brought "Beano" to New York and
> supposedly renamed it "Bingo" when "one lady was so excited at winning that
> she called out 'Bingo' instead of 'Beano'":
>
> https://www.senioradvisor.com/blog/2015/12/history-of-bingo/
>
> It's clear that the game was called "bingo" long before Lowe got to it, so
> perhaps he told that story as a way to claim ownership of the name for
> trademark purposes. Assuming Hugh J. Ward really did give it the name, he
> could have been inspired by the earlier "bingo" game that he would have
> known from growing up in western Pennsylvania. (Ward is quoted in the 1939
> Sun-Telegraph article as saying, "'Bingo' was a popular phrase in those
> days, and so we adopted that.")
>
> --bgz
>
>

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