[Ads-l] It=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_a_bird=3B_It=E2=80=99s_a_plane=3B_It=E2=80=99s_?=a boffin

Sat Mar 19 02:26:47 UTC 2022

Then it should be "buffin," shouldn't it?

JL

On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 9:17 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The term Boffin was linked to birds by March 1943.
>
> Date: March 28, 1943
> Newspaper: Sunday Dispatch
> Newspaper Location: London, England
> Article: Seeks RAF Boffins
> Author: Alan Tomkins
> Quote Page 4, Column 6
> Database: British Newspaper Archive
>
> [Begin excerpt - double check for typos]
> One chap told me that Boffins were named after birds. I could find no
> Boffin in the books of reference.
> [End excerpt]
>
> [Begin excerpt - double check for typos]
> BOFFINS are civilians. The Chief Boffins and most of the staff work in
> offices at Command Headquarters. Minion Boffins haunt operational
> stations.
>
> At meal times and on social occasions they mix with operational crews.
>
> They are scientists, mathematicians, and accountants. They are
> students of human nature—especially the nature of boys who fly large,
> expensive, complicated lethal weapons.
>
> Between them they possess just about all the knowledge in existence
> concerning meteorology, aerodynamics. ballistics, explosives,
> metallurgy, air pressure, and sea pressure.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 8:43 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > There was an ADS discussion thread back in 2014.  Hugo found pertinent
> > evidence dated February 1942.
> > http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2014-June/133031.html
> >
> > Here is the Puffin-Baffin explanation for Boffin in August 1945.
> >
> > Date: August 15, 1945
> > Newspaper: Daily Herald
> > Newspaper Location: London, England
> > Article: How Boffins Won Battles with Echoes
> > Author: Charles Bray
> > Quote Page 2, Column 3 and 4
> > Database: British Newspaper Archive
> >
> > [Begin excerpt - double check for typos]
> > CHARLES BRAY “Daily Herald” Air Correspondent, who watched Radar’s
> > secret triumphs in many battles, tells the story today.
> >
> > He also has something to explain:
> >
> > “Once upon a time a Puffin, a strange and peculiar bird, was crossed
> > with a Baffin, an obsolete Fleet Air Arm aircraft of equally peculiar
> > habits; and the result, according to Service fantasy, was a ‘Boffin.’
> >
> > “This was a creature of intensive energy, strange appearance and
> > unbelievable inventive capacity, whose eggs, as fast as you pushed
> > them away from you, rolled back again.
> >
> > “That, then, is the origin of the nickname ‘Boffin,’ given to the
> > civilian scientists who perfected Radar.”
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > [Begin excerpt - double check for typos]
> > This is “Boffins’ Day,” because for the first time it is permissible
> > to tell something of the war saga of the “Backroom Boys,” known
> > throughout the Services of the United Nations as “Boffins.”
> >
> > It is a dramatic and romantic story of a battle of wits, brains and
> > inventive genius between the scientists of the United Nations and
> > those of the enemy, and the United Nations team won hands down.
> >
> > They were not impressive to look at, these Boffins who haunted Army,
> > Navy and RAF stations in usually rather shabby civilian clothes, and
> > were ever ready to argue on almost any subject except their own work.
> >
> > But generals, air marshals and admirals treated them with respect, for
> > only the very senior officers knew much of their activities.
> >
> > Theirs was the best-kept secret of the war. They were conducting what
> > has been aptly described as the very “heart” of  the United Nations
> > war effort.
> >
> > Their greatest achievement of many was the discovery, development and
> > perfection of Radar, radiolocation ...
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Garson
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 11:59 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > [Puffin; Baffin, plane discontinued in 1941;…]
> > > OED has boffin n. as “elderly Naval officer” from 1941 [though it’s
> 1942 cite I find from 1945 and maybe 1943, author elsewhere given as Edward
> Horace Crebbin, Royal Navy] and “person engaged in…technical research” from
> 1945 [though both senses come from air and sea coastal protection and may
> not be quite distinct?]
> > > M-W has the latter sense from 1942
> > > Green’s Slang adds “[ety. unknown, although according to Robert
> Watson-Watt (1892–1973), the inventor of radar, the term ‘has something to
> do with an obsolete type of aircraft called the Baffin, something to do
> with that odd bird, the Puffin’ (Three Steps to Victory, 1957)]”
> > > Wikipedia has some useful links.
> > > Of course, Boffin is a family name and was used also by Dickens and P.
> G. Wodehouse, though without evident relevance here.
> > > WP cites: Radar at Sea (1993) 86,  a text it dates as Ap. 1, 1941:
> > > [We] played cards waiting for the weather to deteriorate. At last it
> did & both ‘boffins’ were so sick that they could only just make it to the
> set. … [They] turned over to me all the drawings of circuits and layout
> etc., & wished me luck … They couldn’t get away quick enough!
> [Sub-Lieutenant Orton, RNVR].
> > > Watson-Watt [aka “archboffin”] wrote the above accounting also
> earlier, in 1953:
> > > https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4051258
> > > Discover Dec. 1946 [GB]:  PAGE 358 They are brilliant , cranky and
> downright bigoted ; right at the beginning they are christened ' Boffins '
> - a term derived by crossing ' Puffin ' ( a bird with a mournful cry ) with
> ' Baffin ' ( an obsolete type of R.A.F aircraft )
> > > RAF officer (various ranks) George Philip Chamberlain, assigned to
> coast protection in early WW II, is sometimes proposed as the coiner. In
> any case, he was apparently an early adopter.
> > > A self-designation has also been claimed.
> > > Stephen Goranson
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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