Au revoir, 'Telegram'

The Defense Department, General Services Administration and NASA want to bring communications terminology into the 21st century.

Accordingly, the three organizations are proposing the elimination of the use of the words "telegram," "telegraph," "telegraphic," and related old-school terminology from the Federal Acquisition Regulations.

As a June 6 Federal Register notice states:

The word "telegram" emerged shortly after the invention of the electrical telegraph in the 1840s. This terminology and way of communicating was incorporated into the first issue of the FAR, effective April 1, 1984. The emergence of electronic means of communication, starting with the facsimile machine, and then followed by email and mobile-phone text messages in the 1990s, resulted in the sparing use of telegraph services and use of telegrams. On this basis, the Councils are proposing to delete telegraphic services from the FAR and replace these terms with an option for electronic communications.