from New York Times
"Yawp"
by Ellis Parker Butler
To the Editor of The New York Times:
I have read in The Times of Monday morning the wail of that heartless monopoly known as W. J. Lampton objecting to my very brilliant suggestion, that the most appropriate word descriptive of a telephone message is "yawp." For a long period the suffering common poet people of America have writhed under the monopoly known as W. J. Lampton, who has sought to control absolutely the supply and demand of and for the bob-tailed style of poem, and I am glad and proud to strike this blow at that infernal monopoly. If there is a telephone monopoly I hereby give to it all rights in the word "yawp." If that other monopoly, W. J. Lampton, objects to this, let the two monopolies fight it out between them.
I confess that my selection of the word "yawp" came only after a long study of the W. J. Lampton (monopolistic) yawp in The Times and elsewhere. The Lampton yawp is a communication by means of short lines with an occasional jingle. So is a telephone message. A Lampton yawp takes any subject from pole to pole. A telephone also takes any subject from pole to pole. Beginning with an abrupt "Oh, say!" or "Hello!" the Lampton yawp is merely a telephone message done into print. It is not an all-embracing yawp, merely a print yawp.
As to the word "yaup" with a "u" to which "Reader" objects. I did not suggest any such word. According to the dictionary, "yaup" is provincial English for the blue titmouse, and whatever a telephone message may be I am firmly convinced that it is not a blue titmouse. I may be wrong, but that is my opinion.
