# origin of the quote: "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 19, 2001, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486 "2001-10-19T20:13:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Yumanite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumanite)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/1 "2001-10-19T20:13:51Z")
I’ve seen this phrase pop up numerous times. It is in an REM song title, Spider Robinson obvously made a joke about it in _Lady Slings the Booze_, and it was recently mentioned on this message board. What is the original source of this quote?
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### Author:  [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/2 "2001-10-19T20:16:51Z")
[http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20010619.html](http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20010619.html)
Sometime in the mid-80s, a man assaulted Dan Rather on the street, kicking him and yelling repeatedly, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?!?”
Strange, but true.
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### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/3 "2001-10-19T20:26:20Z")
How absolutely bizarre! Thanks for both the question and the answer. Now that’s bar fodder!
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### Author:  [@Cargogal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cargogal)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/4 "2001-10-19T20:48:17Z")
The man who assaulted him is William Tagar, who seems to be a real nutball.
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### Author:  [@Yumanite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumanite)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/5 "2001-10-19T21:03:45Z")
Aha! All of a sudden, much more of Spider Robinson’s joke is clear to me!
**MsWhatsit** , **Cargogal** , thanks for the links.
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### Author:  [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/6 "2001-10-19T23:07:52Z")
In an interview after that, they asked Dan Rather if he knew what R.E.M. stood for. He said that, years ago, the band had chosen a certain name, and that they’d called him for his advice. He recommended that they don’t use the whole name they had chosen; instead, just use the initials.
The name they had chosen?
_Rather’s Eel Mongers_
(Hey, _he_ made it up. I didn’t.)
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### Author:  [@Houlihan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Houlihan)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2001, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/7 "2001-10-20T03:38:03Z")
Rysbad, do you have a cite for that? R.E.M. released its first single (“Radio Free Europe”) in 1981, and the attack reportedly occurred in 1986. ???
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### Author:  [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2001, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/8 "2001-10-20T03:44:18Z")
WTFK is on 1995’s Monster. Anything Dan Rather tells you about R.E.M. is likely a good-natured joke. Rather even sang the song on Letterman.
BTW, other names in the final choices for R.E.M. included Cans of Piss and Negro Eyes.
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### Author:  [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2001, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/9 "2001-10-20T03:55:11Z")
> [@](#):
>
> “Doesn’t R.E.M. stand for ‘rapid eye movement’?”
> In the scientific field of sleep research, the acronym r.e.m. indeed stands for “rapid eye movement,” and refers to the stage of sleep in which, among other things, dreaming occurs. But, in the case of the band, no, it doesn’t necessarily. The story related by Peter Buck on the band’s early 1983 Late Night with David Letterman appearance is that they picked it out of the dictionary (not all dictionaries include scientific terms like “r.e.m.,” so don’t be disappointed if you don’t find it) and they liked it because it was so ambiguous.
>
> From It Crawled from the South:
>
> “‘We sat up one night,’ says Michael, ‘and we just got completely drunk and rolled around the floor. We had all this chalk, and we took every name anyone could think of and we wrote it on the wall in the living room. When morning rolled around, we pointed and erased, and it was between R.E.M. and Negro Eyes, and we thought _that_ probably wouldn’t go over too well outside our immediate circle of friends!’” .
From this site:
[http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8789/remfaq.htm](http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8789/remfaq.htm)
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### Author:  [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2001, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/10 "2001-10-20T07:43:40Z")
damn it, I asked the same Q a while ago, and no one answerd
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### Author:  [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2001, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/11 "2001-10-20T12:11:54Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Houlihan \*
> Rysbad, do you have a cite for that?
You might want to use the search facility (top right of a screen near you) to look up the definition of ‘whoosh’.
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### Author:  [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2001, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/12 "2001-10-20T18:40:38Z")
Once, on WMMR in Philly, they said it stood for
Radioactive Electric Mushrooms…or words to that effect.
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### Author:  [@Yumanite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumanite)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2001, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/13 "2001-10-20T19:53:48Z")
I always assumed that they meant “rapid eye movement”, same as the standard term REM. Why someone would name a band that is another subject entirely.
From the anecdotal evidence given above, it sounds like REM doesn’t really stand for anything at in particular.
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2001, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/14 "2001-10-20T21:02:33Z")
This has been covered in GQ many times, for example [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=34916), and [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=76291).
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by MyFootsZZZ \*
> \*\*damn it, I asked the same Q a while ago, and no one answerd \*\*
Uh, I see your thread [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=91539), including answers, the first one coming an hour later - sorry we weren’t fast enough.
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### Author:  [@Yumanite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumanite)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2001, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/15 "2001-10-21T05:06:23Z")
Heh heh, I guess that’ll teach me to use the search engine properly – I tried, but nothing came up after a really long time, so I quit.
My thanks all who answered the question.
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### Author:  [@Houlihan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Houlihan)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2001, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/16 "2001-10-23T21:34:18Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by London\_Calling \*
> \*\*
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > \*Originally posted by Houlihan \*
> > Rysbad, do you have a cite for that?
>
> You might want to use the search facility (top right of a screen near you) to look up the definition of ‘whoosh’. \*\*
Huh?
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### Author:  [@DAVEW0071](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DAVEW0071)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2001, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-quote-whats-the-frequency-kenneth/88486/17 "2001-10-23T21:55:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Houlihan \*
> \*\*
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > \*Originally posted by London\_Calling \*
> > \*\*
> >
> > > [@](#):
> > >
> > > \*Originally posted by Houlihan \*
> > > Rysbad, do you have a cite for that?
> >
> > You might want to use the search facility (top right of a screen near you) to look up the definition of ‘whoosh’. \*\*
>
> Huh? \*\*
WHOOOooo[sub]oooosh![/sub]