Etymology
The origin of the term chad is uncertain. Patent documents from the 1930s and 1940s show the word chad, often in reference to punched tape used in telegraphy. These patents sometimes include synonyms such as chaff and chips. A patent filing in 1930 included a "receptacle or chad box ... to receive the chips cut from the edge of the tape." A 1938 patent filing included a "chaff or chad chute" to collect the chad. Both patents were assigned to Teletype Corporation.
The plural chads is attested from about 1939, along with chadless, meaning without chad. Clear definitions for both terms are offered by Walter Bacon in a patent application filed in 1940 assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories: "... In making these perforations, the perforator cuts small round pieces of paper, known in the art as chads, out of the tape. These chads are objectionable ... Chadless tape is prepared by feeding blank tape through a device which will not punch a complete circle in the tape but, instead, will only cut approximately three-quarters of the circumference of a circle ... thereby leaving a movable, or hinged, lid of paper in the tape.
In the New Hacker's Dictionary, two derivations for chad are offered, a back-formation from a personal name Chadless and an acronym for Card Hole Aggregate Debris. These are clearly intended as jokes. More serious speculation about the origins of the word chad suggests derivation from the Scottish name for river gravel, chad, or the British slang for louse, chat. Chad may also be derived from the Indo-European chadd, to discard or throw away.
Read more about this topic: Chad (paper)
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
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