# Etymology of "ping" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 6, 2013, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161 "2013-03-06T06:00:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bababadalgharagh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bababadalgharagh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bababadalgharagh)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/1 "2013-03-06T06:00:30Z")
According to [WP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping) _ping_, the IP network utility, was named after the sonar “ping”, which is apparently onomatopoeic. However, “ping” is now used in the vernacular in the sense of “pinging” someone via (usually) electronic communication to request acknowledgement of a message. Does the usage of “ping” in this latter sense directly derive from the network utility _ping_, or does it predate it? And how common is usage of the word “ping” like this by people without technical backgrounds or who are otherwise familiar with the ping utility? Also, assuming the vernacular usage does derive from the _ping_ utility, are there examples other technical jargon that have entered the common vernacular and become (mostly) dissociated with their technical origins? (Computer jargon terms like “bits” and “bytes” that are commonly known but commonly understood as computer jargon do not count…obviously this hinges on what is considered common knowledge so cannot be answered precisely, but I’m looking for things generally in this category.) ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/2 "2013-03-06T06:06:32Z")
Sonar works by sending out a sound (_ping_) and analyzing the returning echo of that sound. The network ping utility works by sending out a short packet and analyzing the returning packet from the receiving system. It’s a fairly short leap to the current business-speak version of it where you’re sending out a quick query and analyzing the responses. ---
**Author:** ![bababadalgharagh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bababadalgharagh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bababadalgharagh)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/3 "2013-03-06T06:12:09Z")
Yes, I understand that, but are you **sure** that this business speak does not predate _ping_ the utility? And also, do people use the business speak version without having heard of the utility? ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/4 "2013-03-06T06:16:58Z")
> [@bababadalgharagh](#): > > Yes, I understand that, but are you **sure** that this business speak does not predate _ping_ the utility? And also, do people use the business speak version without having heard of the utility? Yes Yes ---
**Author:** ![bababadalgharagh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bababadalgharagh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bababadalgharagh)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/5 "2013-03-06T06:28:01Z")
> [@DataX](#): > > Yes w.r.t the etymology part, I grant that this is seems the most likely case and what I’ve always thought to be true, so I don’t doubt you, but I also don’t think it can be 100% ruled out that there was usage of the word “ping” in this sense before the utility _ping_, which is why I asked. this wouldn’t be the first time an intuitively obvious etymology ended up being the reverse of the actual etymology. _ping_ came out in 1983 which is about when I was born, but if anyone born much earlier can absolutely attest that no-one at that time would have understood “ping” in its common vernacular form, then that would answer my query. it’s always possible it was a very niche usage. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/6 "2013-03-06T06:48:00Z")
What year would you consider early enough and how much of a techie would the person have to be for you to believe it? Because whenever my professors born in the '30s to '60s heard my team talk about pinging someone, the reaction was always “uh what?” Reactions to hearing about fingering someone were more extreme, we got a few heavy rants on how that’s absolutely a no-no. We were “those weirdos who use computers to do chemistry”, the surprised professors were traditional chemists and the time when this was happening was the late '90s. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/7 "2013-03-06T06:51:38Z")
> [@bababadalgharagh](#): > > w.r.t the etymology part, I grant that this is seems the most likely case and what I’ve always thought to be true, so I don’t doubt you, but I also don’t think it can be 100% ruled out that there was usage of the word “ping” in this sense before the utility _ping_, which is why I asked. this wouldn’t be the first time an intuitively obvious etymology ended up being the reverse of the actual etymology. > > _ping_ came out in 1983 which is about when I was born, but if anyone born much earlier can absolutely attest that no-one at that time would have understood “ping” in its common vernacular form, then that would answer my query. it’s always possible it was a very niche usage. No one can ever be 100% sure about such things, and it is not reasonable to expect it, since most speech is never recorded, and most new word are coined informally, by speakers. All etymologies are educated guesswork to some extent (except where someone explicitly tells us, in writing, that they are deliberately coining a new word, and there is no evidence for any earlier use of it). However, I am about as sure as I can be about such a matter that the notion of “pinging” a person is very recent, and postdates and derives from the network utility. I never heard it used in the person sense until quite recently. I suppose it is remotely possible that the usage derives directly from sonar pinging, but it seems highly unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/8 "2013-03-06T06:52:31Z")
The business ping usage came about before my eyes - started out almost jokingly - and by those that would have known the utility. It was quite obvious that was what was going on. And it got bigger from there. I can’t say it developed that way in all places. And you are always good to be cautious. In many cases I don’t think most that had used the utility had used it past the Comcast modem diagnostic sense. If your cable model went down - they would have you use ping to ping the router, gateway, then a real website. Just some useless info - but adds some flavor to it. ---
**Author:** ![bababadalgharagh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bababadalgharagh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bababadalgharagh)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/9 "2013-03-06T06:52:43Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > What year would you consider early enough and how much of a techie would the person have to be for you to believe it? I believe it already, actually. I was just hoping I might be wrong and surprised. Maybe someone will come along with some example of something in the pre-1983 written corpus of someone using “ping” in a personal communication context, who knows? Stranger things have happened. ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/10 "2013-03-06T06:55:34Z")
Also - for FWIW - I’ve also head it used in the sense of a text message being sent solely to see if someone else was still there. I almost had the impression some phone/app/model had this as a feature. ������ ---
**Author:** ![bababadalgharagh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bababadalgharagh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bababadalgharagh)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/11 "2013-03-06T07:20:58Z")
Well, regardless of this, does anyone have any examples of words with similar etymology? (Stuff like “Googling” doesn’t count because that’s explicitly understood as originating from technology by everyone who uses it.) ---
**Author:** ![bababadalgharagh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@bababadalgharagh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bababadalgharagh)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/12 "2013-03-06T07:29:47Z")
Also, it seems clear that the _ping_ utility etymology, though likely true, is not universally understood, since one entry on [UrbanDictionary](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ping) for “ping” is the following: > [@](#): > > To send a short message, expecting a yes/no response. Originally from submarines, where a ping sound was emitted to listen for echoes from other vessels. So it seems that the author is either unaware of _ping_ the utility or thinks it was derived from this usage, rather than vice-vera (or possibly that they’ve glossed over that part of the etymology purposely, I suppose). ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/13 "2013-03-06T12:47:00Z")
Well, there’s [The Story about Ping](http://www.amazon.com/Story-about-Reading-Railroad-Books/dp/0448421658) from 1933. Check out the review by John E. Fracisco. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/14 "2013-03-06T12:53:34Z")
It actually derives from an [an obscure movie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wshyX6Hw52I) from a few decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/15 "2013-03-06T13:34:08Z")
Imagine Dilbert saying to Wally, “Ping me when your code is ready to test.” They know the ping utility, and how this applies to humans would be immediately clear. The pointy-haired boss overhears. He has no idea what they mean but thinks it sounds really cool so he starts saying it. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/16 "2013-03-06T13:43:30Z")
My copy of the OED from 1989 has no mention of “ping” as used here. Submarine sonar echo meaning has first uses from about WW2. Before that, mostly pinging as a high pitched bell noise. I first came across the ICMP style use of ping in about 1993. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/17 "2013-03-06T13:49:36Z")
The Google [NGram viewer](http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ping&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=) shows that the word had a major jump in the 1930s. Previously, it was tied in with “ping pong” and the Chinese name “Ping.” But “ping” was used to describe a type of engine noise in cars in the 1940s. [Shana Alexander](http://books.google.com/books?id=XlYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA31&dq=%22ping%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=60g3UbmVKY-E8QTFgoG4BQ&ved=0CFQQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=%22ping%22&f=false) used the word in 1967 to mean a warning and I can see an example from 1966 that involves sonar. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/18 "2013-03-06T14:45:36Z")
The [Online Etymology Dictionary](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=ping&searchmode=none) dates the word in general to 1835, as onomatopoeic from the sound of a bullet hitting something; the computer sense it dates to 1981. However, no mention of the business sense. (I love the Online Etymology Dictionary.) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/19 "2013-03-06T14:57:37Z")
I never knew about the computer utility part. I always assumed it came directly from the sonar usage. I don’t remember how far back I first heard it. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161/20 "2013-03-06T15:07:13Z")
I used to send people “ping?” IMs, and techies would respond back “pong!” Non-techies would respond with “Huh?” and I would explain the ping utility. So I definitely think this is a case of a word spreading from techie to non-techie culture. I also think this is unique in the sense that most non-techies who use the word don’t know where it came from. At least, most people would look at me funny if I said that we should pong someone back. I’m trying to think of other examples but I can’t come up with any. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/etymology-of-ping/652161.md?page=2)