On the ARRL PR mailing list, we’ve been discussing the proper way to refer to amateur radio. What brought this up was an email from one list subscriber, Richard, WB6NAH, who was (rightfully) proud of the work that his club—the Skagit Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Club—was doing. He noted that they were even featured in the police department’s emergency preparedness brochure:
As you can see, it refers to “HAM radio” and “HAM radio operators.”
Referring to amateur radio in this way just drives me crazy. “Ham radio” is just a nickname for amateur radio, and “HAM” is certainly not an acronym for anything. I congratulated Richard on getting his club included in the brochure, but noted, “…it’s not HAM radio! It’s either ‘amateur radio’ or ‘ham radio’ (ham is not an acronym). I hate to be nitpicky about this, but as a professional writer, this usage just drives me crazy.” He replied, “I agree on Amateur Radio, that was the city’s call.”
That kicked off the discussion.
One ham replied to me privately, “Thank you…I am continually trying to explain that it is not an acronym or abbreviation.”
Another replied to the list:
The most correct term is “amateur radio” or alternatively “ham radio”, both written in normal case. If using “ham radio”, it is a best practice to first write “amateur (ham) radio” in the first non-header/non-title occurrence.
Some will write “Amateur Radio” in proper noun format (first letters in caps) and while this may be acceptable to many and in certain venues, anyone using a style handbook will say it is incorrect. Less correct is to write “Ham Radio” in proper noun format as this is a slang term, albeit a popular one. Of course either term may be written as proper nouns when part of a title or name of an organization.
Least correct is to write “HAM” in all caps; as stated by others, ham is not an abbreviation or acronym. Writing it as “HAM” is completely wrong, will drive many people bonkers, and should be avoided at all costs.
Ward, N0AX, offered this explanation:
To clarify where the capitalization originated, there is a long-standing ARRL Board Directive, decades old, stipulating that the words “Amateur Radio” be capitalized in ARRL publications and documents. Most non-amateur publications return it to the lower-case style that is used for non-proper nouns.
One guy got a little miffed that we were wasting our time discussing this at all:
You know, I’ve been reading this thread and I think people are getting too hung up on very minor details. The bottom line they got PR. So something wasn’t spelled right or capitalized, so what. The message got out and IMHO that’s the bottom line. Let’s not waste any more bandwidth on this.
I agreed that it was great that they were included in the brochure, and that we were probably beating this topic to death, but I don’t think these are minor details. I said that PR professionals pride themselves on getting the details right. So should amateur radio PR people.
I’ll give the final word to Dan, AI4GK. He wrote:
I don’t think that standardizing what we call ourselves qualifies as getting hung up on minor details. If we don’t have a standardized way of referring to us, how can we expect a public, who already is confused, to understand who we are?
I don’t think that you can argue with this. Let’s avoid confusion by using “amateur radio” when writing about our hobby/service. I’d even urge the ARRL to rethink their use of “Amateur Radio.” Sometimes, it may be OK to use “ham radio,” but it’s just not correct to use “HAM radio” or just “HAM.”
I’ve always preferred “amateur radio” because it’s more correct or accurate, following the FCC’s use of “Amateur Radio Service”. But I’ve noticed that the words “ham radio” tend to connect with more people, so I have adopted that now in casual conversation.
Never HAM or H.A.M. (barf).
73, Bob K0NR
And I thought I was the only one irritated by ARRL’s capitalization.
I’ve done a couple of ARISS contacts and there’s some likelihood of doing more. I’ve thought about writing up an amateur radio style guide to hand out to the media covering such events, because some of their usages are even more annoying.
For example, the hobby should be referred to has “amateur radio” or “ham radio” and never simply as “ham,” unlike CB radio where “CB” seems to be acceptable. Practitioners of the hobby must be referred to as “radio amateurs,” “amateur radio operators,” “ham radio operators,” or simply “hams,” but never as “hammers” — again unlike CB.
There are too many more examples to list now, but it sure would be nice to see more coverage of amateur radio in the popular media that doesn’t make some of us hams cringe.
73,
Larry K8MU
I think the idea of doing a style guide is a great idea! I’ll publish it here on KB6NU.Com.
Larry told me about this post last week. Unfortunately Larry (K8MU) became a silent key yesterday. Larry was my friend and Amateur Radio Mentor.
Being the the perpetual contrarian, I choose to rename the entire fraternity. “Amateur radio” is a derogatory term as is “ham”.
Let’s take our rightful place in the Universe as “Radio Wizards”.
But do we capitalize that or not?
Jeff, KE9V
I agree that we do need a better name than “amateur radio,” but we can only capitalize “radio wizards” if we form a group with that name.
I kind of partial to the British term “boffin.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin.
“Radio boffin” has a nice ring to it.
Larry K8MU
I like that!
I like the term “radio wizard,” but then we’d all have to wear those weird pointed hats. OTOH, a 2 meter j-pole could be disguised in the staff… well, it’s an idea.
How about this? Let’s all (Jeff, Larry, Rob, and me) form the Ancient and Honorable Order of Radio Wizards. We’ll get K1NSS ( who we probably could coerce into joining as well) to design us a certificate that we’ll sell to “new members” for $5 a pop.
I’m in – so long as whatever my rank in the organization can be prefaced with “The Honourable…” doesn’t matter what follows!
OK, if we’re doing this, I’m in too. In the spirit of “Gandalf the Grey,” I’ll go with “Rob the Orange.” It has a good ring to it, and will come in handy when operating backwoods portable during deer season.
If you’ll notice on http://reddit.com/r/amateurradio, there is a bot or person that catches when people use “HAM” instead of ham: http://www.reddit.com/u/ham-not-HAM
He’s my favorite person on reddit because HAM is my #1 pet peeve.
How cool! I didn’t notice that before. Great work, /u/ham-not-HAM!
HAM is an acronym: Hardly Any Money.
You guys are funny.
In a scary kind of way.
Yes, HAM is wrong. It’s ham, ham radio, or amateur radio.
HOWEVER, I’ve got a hunch all-caps HAM is one of those things which certain hams know is wrong but employ it to troll the sticklers. Sort of like 73s. Of course it’s not plural. The plural best wishes are implicit in the numeric, so the s is superfluous. Nevertheless, “seventy-threes” can be fun to say, just like New Englanders enjoy using the phrase “so don’t I” when they mean “so do I.” They know better. They also know it confounds outsiders and bugs the hell out of humorless insiders, humorless at least, on that score.
Somewhere I read that sort of linguistic tic is common to many languages. It appears that deliberate bad grammar and silly expressions have been great sport since Hector was a pup. The trick is, not to acknowledge the salt in the wound. When you don’t rise to the bait, it incrementally bugs the buggers.
HAM radio. Anything you say Chief. Call ’em Chief. They’ll go nuts.
I’m glad we just call it amateur radio in Germany (Amateurfunk in German. [funk comes from ‘der Funken’, meaning ‘the spark’. Transceiver is Funkgerät which literally means ‘spark device’, so you see the words are really old.]). But we have the big problem almost none of the people we tell about amateur radio have got any idea about it. Some think it’s the same as CB radio, but the vast majority has no idea at all.
Thanks for your comment, Joshua. I’ve always wondered where the “funk” came from.
I resemble that remark. (check my QRZ.com page) de N9JF
Can we call you “Sparky,” then?
THANK YOU (capitalized only for emphasis). My first ham license, Novice, was granted in 1992. I didn’t start seeing hams capitalizing it until the mid to late oughts (2000s). It’s akin to fingernails on a chalkboard to me. One of many things I learned in the Marines is, “Attention to detail, people!”