Marshall McLuhan - On Phoniness

I have no other “hard copy” record of the World Paper other than the February 1979 one.  It does have a presence on the web, (www.worldpaper.com/index.html).  But it appears that 2004 was the last year of its publication.

The February 1979 issue has, on the same page 7 that Wiio’s “Laws of Communication” appears on, an interview with Marshall McLuhan, who was at that time was associated with the University of Toronto.

I’d like to quote in full a section of the interview titled:

On Phoniness and Irresponsibility

“Real” is an idea borrowed from the visual world.  The word ‘phony’ –which means ‘unreal’ in English slang – originally meant “as unreal as a telephone conversation”.  In the 1920 dictionary, that’s what ‘phony’ meant.

But the “unrealness” is the result of the electric speed.  At the speed of light, we do not have any physical bodies.  When we’re on the telephone or on the air we literally do not have a physical body.  We become completely software, and we don’t pay any attention to what this does to us physically.

When you don’t have a body, you have no way of relating to the physical world.  You lose your identity.  So electronic man is minus an identity.  He is also minus any responsibility to anybody.

We read about 20, 000 dead in an earthquake in Iran - and it doesn’t mean anything.  People may be more aware in a factual sense, but the facts have no impact upon them.  It’s well known that people today in electronic cultures will stand around and watch people get killed and beaten up and not turn a hand.  They think, “Oh, it’s just another news event”.

I’ll say no more because any discussion would be too involved and way beyond my reasons for starting this blog.  Some links:
MMXI – Celebrating 100 years of McLuhan – Marshall McLuhan
McLuhan Galaxy
Marshall McLuhan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On the other hand, picking on the derivation of ‘phony’ (or phoney) is not.

Let’s start with my “hard copy” dictionaries:

1.      The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 4^th Ed 1951, Reprinted 1956, p895:
Considers it Slang and origin unknown

2.      Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 2^nd Ed, Revised, 2003, p850:
Considers it Informal and origin unknown

3.      New Flower’s Modern English Usage, 3^rd Ed, Revised, 1998, p594:
“A now very familiar word, esp, since the phoney war ((relative inaction before full-scale hostilities) of 1940, but not traced in print before 1900, and of uncertain origin.”

4.      Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language – Unabridged, 1950(?):
Not listed!?

On-line dictionaries:

1.      Merriam-Webster (Phony - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary) gives the following as the origin:
“perhaps alteration of fawney gilded brass ring used in the fawney rig, a confidence game, from Irish fáinne ring, from Old Irish ánne — more at ANUS
First Known Use: 1900”:
PS: Following the ANUS link does actually lead to the “alimentary canal”

2.      Dictionary.com (Phony | Define Phony at Dictionary.com) gives as a similar origin:
“1895–1900; perhaps alteration and respelling of fawney  (slang) finger ring (< Irish fsptáinne ), if taken to mean “false” in the phrase fawney rig a confidence game in which a brass ring is sold as a gold one

3.      Oxford Dictionaries (Definition of phoney - British & World English) maintains the “hard copy” origin, namely:
“late 19th century: of unknown origin”

Before returning to McLuhan’s derivation, I’d like to consider Webster’s Dictionary non-listing of “phony/phoney”.  This seems peculiar as in Wikipedia’s introduction on its entry “The Phoney War” (Phoney War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) it states:

The term "Phoney War" was possibly coined by U.S. Senator William Borah who stated, in September 1939: "There is something phoney about this war."

Thus the word was in use in the USA well before 1950.  So who knows why the “unabridged” dictionary “abridged” phoney?  I also could not find the year of publication of the dictionary.  The year I quote as 1950 is an “estimate”.   

The dictionary has a fascinating (at least for me) Appendix.

Page 1 of this Appendix lists “The Largest Cities in the United States” and gives the populations in 1930, 1940 and 1950 (estimated for this year).  So the estimated population for 1950 for New York City is given as 7,835,099 (with estimates like this who needs to count!).  I acquired the dictionary, second-hand, in 1957, but on fly-leaf is written that it was bought in Melbourne in October 1953.

Page 117 of this Appendix lists “The Presidents of the United States” (accompanied by “pen & ink” sketches) with President Truman the last listed.  Thus it was published after 1948 but before 1952.

Hence, my “estimate” of 1950 which is 1 in 4 and at least somewhat more optimistic than estimating the population of NY City to 1 in 10^7.

Back to McLuhan’s derivation:
The word ‘phony’ –which means ‘unreal’ in English slang – originally meant “as unreal as a telephone conversation”.  In the 1920 dictionary, that’s what ‘phony’ meant.

It would be good to find that “1920 dictionary”, but I like the derivation. Currently words are being coined from ITC – like “to google”.  Here's a suggested one for an incessant Facebook user – “facerbee”.  For example, someone who goes to a restaurant with friends and takes a photo of every course and posts them, then and there, unto Facebook.

By the way, I could not find any reference to the interview published in The World Paper in February 1979 in any of the bibliographies on Marshall McLuhan as they appear in the blog McLuhan Galaxy.  It was, however, a very cursory scan.