Why did reporters for years end their stories by writing "-30-"? (2007) | Hacker News Reader

Why did reporters for years end their stories by writing "-30-"? (2007)

ajrarchive.org

14 pointssusam9 comments

Old time ham radio operators know this one.

Answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_signal

> A wire signal is a brevity code used by telegraphers to save time and cost when sending long messages.

> Today, amateur radio operators still use codes 73 and 88 regularly, and -30- is used in journalism, as it was shorthand for "No more - the end".

10-4

( https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24353 doesn't seem to have numeric codes, yet probably they were translated for the benefit of the reader: I doubt "Please send slower!" was transmitted in exactly those characters during a conversation which opened "B m—X n")

EDIT: confirmed: Then followed the figure "4," which means, "When shall I go ahead?"

EDIT: according to http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/wurules1866/92code... Nattie's "Please repeat." would've been "R" on the wire, so "Please send slower!" was probably symbolised with equal brevity?

It also gives -13- as "I understand", which makes more sense, as a reply to -12-, than the wikipedia page's entry.

Clickbait. You are never given an answer, just some speculation. "Some believe" etc.

My guess is that -30- was first chosen as the typographic representation of the end of a floral ornament used to signify the end of a text.

For example, check these:

https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/text-end-divider...

Several of the ornament endings can be stylized as ---3O-

I don't often ask why something is on the front page, but why is this answerless clickbait about something that can be trivially looked up on Wikipedia on the frontpage?

The article doesn't clear up the mystery, but this explanation sounds the most convincing to me:

> "You had to use something when you were typing because you would write two or three paragraphs on deadline," Harrison says. "Then the copyboy would pick it up and send it to the composing room. It was necessary [to have] some way to say, 'This is it, it's over... Put a head on it and put it in the next day's paper.'"

So it used to be part of an ad-hoc protocol for sending paper messages from your typewriter to the print shop, and the "-30-" was what EOF is today?

wow what a great article -30-

Tl;Dr - the author doesn't know.

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