Ping – a silly word with a heroic history
In the search for the remains of flight MH370, a pulse signal was detected beneath the ocean. The BBC called it a ‘ping’, in inverted commas on its website and with the spoken equivalent in broadcasts, as if ping were too demotic to be used with due respect. Ping seems joky only because its origin
 
		 
			 
			 
			 
			 
			 
			