It seems logical that the phrase, “On the air” wasn’t created until after radio broadcasting. “You’re on” was probably used in the stage community for many years but when did people start adding “the air” to it? I remember hearing early radio recordings where the announcer referred to his words and/or voice “going out through the air” but I don’t know just how old the recordings were and besides it seems like such an obvious, if poetic, phrasing that it might well have been used by Marconi himself.
I wonder if Marconi coined the term “broadcasting?” Websters New Collegiate Dictionary doesn’t say.
There were a whole bunch of broadcasting terms that I meant to ask about. But of course I can’t remember them right now. I’ll post as they occur to me.
Actually, it goes farther back than that. In biblical times it referred to the commonly used method of sowing seeds, where the person would walk through the field and spread seeds by hand.
Yes, I saw the other meanings of broadcast in the dictionary. Somehow, I doubt the radio term broadcasting came from the agricultural term, but what do I know?
