regarding the proper meanings of: YL OM and XYL and DR At the dawn of Ham Radio, it was the Flapper days... the 1920s. Couples didn't "date". They courted. You had to have family permission to approach a young lady for courtship or at the very least, introduced. If you were interested in a female, a single one, she was properly called a "young lady". Typically a Young Lady was presumably available if she was called a young lady. You might imagine that ham radio was an interesting activity for young men, just like automobiles in the 1910s, 20s, 30s. And nothing's changed where of course, girls were a constant topic. They weren't "girls" back then, but maybe "gals" and more properly they were Young Ladies. And the young men teased each other if they were too fogey, too "not with it". Far from being nerds, young men interested in cars and radio were cool, in today-speak. And if you were not cool, you were an old man. Think British. They commonly teased each other by calling each other "old man". You've heard that, right?
So the fellows called themselves OM, sort of poking fun at themselves and at each other. And if a man was unmarried and he was looking, he was looking for a Young Lady... a single lady, not a married one. So if you said to a friend, "hey old man, have you seen this new young lady around town? I think her name is Ann. Do you know anything about her?" And then if he replied, "yeh old man, stay away from her, she's Bud's wife (or fiancee or ..) -- she's no longer a young lady (not single), she's an Ex- Young Lady." I can see that being a joke that became a meme. There were YLs and so it would be funny to call the claimed ones "Ex". Not about age. About availability. Contrary to some misunderstandings, originally YLs and XYLs are not just females in the ham fraternity, or married to hams, it just means YL=Available Women and XYL=Unavailable Women (either claimed or married). I was mostly hamming in the 1960s, and this is what I picked up reading and listening back in that day.. .and when I came back to ham radio in 2000 I noticed people were afraid of offending wives if they called them XYL. No. It wasn't Ex as in No Longer Young. But they heard the EX modified "young" so it must mean "old". Not originally, anyway. But times change. People get offended by language they don't understand -- so they try to be "correct". It is a quaint old custom to call each other OM... It was a fun way the young men of the early 20th century calling each other out if they behaved too staid and proper, instead of adventurous and young-minded. So OM is ok with me -- doesn't mean we are old.. it's just tradition. BTW, chasing DX on CW it was common to address each other as DR OM which meant Dear OM. That's another quaint custom that seems to confuse people and has been lost mostly except maybe internationally sometimes. We are afraid if we say Dear OM there's a sexual overtone? Come on. Go read old letters addressed between business people. Even today it is proper to address a letter "Dear Sir:".. There's a reason for that. We've probably all been taken wrongly in an email or text when someone mistakens our tone... maybe they think we are sarcastic or angry or pedantic even when we are just trying to make factual statements. That has ALWAYS been a problem with language that is not face to face, where you can read the other one's countenance, the emotionless text can be misconstrued. So the "Dear" and the "very truly yours" language was customary to lighten the speech. So how do I know all these things? You can take my facts to the bank. After all, most of what I think I know I learned from listening to myself talk. ROD / W5IE On Sun, Jan 7, 2024 at 4:04 PM anthony moro via BVARC <bvarc@bvarc.org> wrote: > So today I was schooled why I shouldn't call a female operator a XYL. So > XYL means unlicensed female operator, or ones wife that is an operator. > Either way it seems to me that it is not a good idea to say that to you > better half if she is an operator. I was given this when I said that. > > Young Lady > The term "Young Lady" derives from a Morse code abbreviation, YL, that is > used to refer to female amateur radio operators, regardless of age. (As > male operators of any age are addressed as OM or "old man", the > non-licensed spouse of an OM is often called an XYL.) > -- > *Anthony Morones* > * W5LIC* > *w5li...@gmail.com <w5li...@gmail.com>* > * 713-410-3948* > ________________________________________________ > Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club > > BVARC mailing list > BVARC@bvarc.org > http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org > Publicly available archives are available here: > https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/ >
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