[78-L] Mommy, why is daddy an archeologist?

[Michael Biel]

On 4/15/2011 9:53 PM, Steven C. Barr wrote:
>
> Well. around 1935 the idea of writing and compiling about 78's (the
> only records that existed then..)

No, the Program Transcriptions were still in the catalog.
>   generated the need of a convenient
> term to describe it. What emerged was "discography"...i.e. "writing
> about discs (records)...!
Delauney's publisher assumed that this word was their copyrighted 
property, and in the late 30s or 40s served notice on several record 
magazines when they published articles with record lists titled 
discographies.  I think I ran across this being discussed in The Record 
Changer.  I think it might have been at the time of publishing the New 
Hot Discography which was the late 40s.  They were soon told to back off 
because there had not been any attempt to trademark the word.  (When 
Compton MacKenzie was starting up The Grmophione magazine and approached 
representatives of HMV for advertising, they agreed and also told the 
startled MacKenzie that they were not planning on suing him for 
infringing on their trademarked name.)

Last year on ARSCList there was a discussion of whether discography was 
appropriate for catalogs of tapes, cylinders, and other non-disc 
formats.  We all said yes, and I mentioned that there had been 
cylinderographies in the past.


>   So...are we "discists?" or is there a more
> elegant term possible...?!

Are tape collectors "tape worms"?
> ANYTHING is better than "That crazy old f...ogey that buys all those
> ancient records"...?!  Steven C. Barr

I EARNED my Old Fogey status, especially considering what I went thru in 
the hospital a couple of months ago.  I have indeed considered the 
alternative, and I hope to continue to grow older.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com