Language Matters | From Queen’s Radio Ga Ga to ‘Roger that’ – how the wireless influenced language

World Radio Day, on February 13, is a celebration of the communications medium.

The word “radio”, with roots in the Latin “radius” (“beam”, “ray”), refers to radio waves. In 1886, German physicist Heinrich Hertz became the first person to transmit and receive controlled radio waves, which were initially named Hertzian waves. The first practical radio transmitters and receivers using radiotelegraphy – “tele” and “graphy” originating in Greek, meaning “at a distance” and “a writing”, respectively – were invented in the mid-1890s by Italian electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi.

Faster than the telegraph, and without the need for laying wires or cables, early wireless telegraphy relied on Morse code, with information transmitted by radio-wave pulses of two lengths – dots and dashes – spelling out text messages. It was only a matter of time before radio communication advanced from two parties talking back and forth to one party sending out a signal to be heard by many as a broadcast.

The first radio broadcast of speech and music is believed to have been transmitted in 1906 by Canadian-American inventor Reginald Fessenden, from Massachusetts to ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Less than 15 years later, in 1920, the first public scheduled broadcast was made.

The term “wireless telegraphy” was widespread – used by The New York Times up to 1921 – but military preference during the first world war established “radio”, clipped from radiotelegraphy, as the word for such communications. “Wireless” saw a resurgence in usage in the late-20th century, with technologies such as mobile broadband, Wi-fi and Bluetooth primarily used for such digital devices.