[CQ-Contest] Iddy-umpty

[Barry Merrill]

In the heyday of Morse telegraph operators, a company advertised
for operators, and an aspirant went into the waiting room where
some 30 others were standing and waiting.  After a few seconds
the aspirant walked over to the mangers door and walked in.
In the background was a morse transmission of
"If you can read this, come into the office".

Barry, W5GN

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of David Gilbert
Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2017 12:01 PM
To: xdavid at cis-broadband.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Iddy-umpty


 From an article on BBC.com about words about to be lost:

"Iddy-umpty"

"An affectionate term for Morse code, used in the early 1900s. ‘Umpty’ 
had been in use since the mid 19th Century as a slang term for an unspecified or seemingly impossibly large number (which eventually gave us the word umpteen in the early 1900s). To that was attached the apparently random prefix ‘iddy’ to form ‘iddy-umpty’, a word intended perhaps to imitate the stuttering sound of a Morse code transmission, and to allude to its seemingly countless stream of ‘dits’ and ‘dahs’."


I had never even heard that term before, and I've been licensed since 1967.

73,
Dave, AB7E

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