[Ads-l] FYI: FYI

[George Thompson]

OED

Originally *U.S.*

 *A.* *phr*

  For your information (typically preceding or following an explanatory
statement).

1941    *Washington Post* 27 Apr. 5/3   ‘FYI’ titles this new program for
the Mutual network... The letters mean ‘For Your Information’—a series
detailing how the United States is combating sabotage and espionage.



The website of The Guardian newspaper this morning (January 31) has an
article on the technical language of journalism.

"The perils of using journalist jargon outside the newsroom."

Elisabeth Ribbans <https://www.theguardian.com/profile/elisabethribbans>.


The article concludes:
For your information

As a postscript, I was fascinated when reading Evans’ glossary [*] to find,
just below “furniture”, an entry for “FYI”. He explained “for your
information” was a wire service abbreviation. It had never occurred to me
that this initialism, familiar from text messages and work emails, had its
origins in news reporting. With help from archivists at Associated Press
(AP) and Reuters, and a willing executive at the UPI news agency, I have
been on its trail.

The earliest reference I can find is a 1915 cutting from the Salt Lake
Telegram newspaper, where a business journalist dropped “FYI” into an
article, then explained its meaning to readers, adding: “It’s just a little
thing that saves space on a telegraph message”. (In those days telegraph
companies charged by the word.) But he complained it “jolted” him when he
first saw it, and that it was not “in the book”.

The book may have been Phillips Telegraphic Code
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Code#:~:text=The%20Phillips%20Code%20is%20a,desk%20staff%20would%20commonly%20use.>,
first published in 1879 to assist the rapid transmission of press reports
from wire services to client newspapers. Francesca Pitaro, archivist at AP,
kindly checked the 1914 edition and found no mention. Did the abbreviation
arrive only in 1915, or did it spring independently? If we find out, I’ll
report back; just FYI.

* Harold Evans’ five-volume Manual of English, Typography and Layout,
published in 1972, has an extensive glossary

GAT

-- 
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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