![TicketPunchChad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/TicketPunchChad.agr.jpg)
Chad refers to fragments sometimes created when
hole
A hole is an opening in or through a particular medium, usually a solid body. Holes occur through natural and artificial processes, and may be useful for various purposes, or may represent a problem needing to be addressed in many fields of en ...
s are made in a paper, card or similar synthetic materials, such as computer
punched tape
Five- and eight-hole punched paper tape
Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop
Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage ...
or
punched card
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...
s. The word "chad" has been used both as a
mass noun
In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete elemen ...
(as in "a pile of chad") and as a
countable noun
In linguistics, a count noun (also countable noun) is a noun that can be modified by a quantity and that occurs in both singular and plural forms, and that can co-occur with quantificational determiners like ''every'', ''each'', ''several'', e ...
(pluralizing as in "many chads").
Etymology
The origin of the term chad is uncertain. Patent documents from the 1930s and 1940s show the word "chad", often in reference to punched tape used in
telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...
. These patents sometimes include synonyms such as "
chaff
Chaff (; ) is the dry, scaly protective casing of the seeds of cereal grains or similar fine, dry, scaly plant material (such as scaly parts of flowers or finely chopped straw). Chaff is indigestible by humans, but livestock can eat it. In agri ...
" and "
chip Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is a type of immunoprecipitation experimental technique used to investigate the interaction between proteins and DNA in the cell. It aims to determine whether specific proteins are associated with specific genomi ...
s". A patent filing in 1930 included a "receptacle or ''
chad box
In computing jargon, the bit bucket (or byte bucket) is where lost computerized data has gone, by any means; any data which does not end up where it is supposed to, being lost in transmission (telecom), transmission, a computer crash, or the l ...
'' ... to receive the chips cut from the edge of the tape." A 1938 patent filing included a "chaff or ''chad chute''" to collect the waste fragments. Both patents were assigned to
Teletype Corporation
The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment. ...
.
The plural ''chads'' is attested from about 1939, along with ''chadless'', meaning "without
oose
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of pr ...
chad". Clear definitions for both terms are offered by Walter Bacon in a patent application filed in 1940 assigned to
Bell Telephone Laboratories
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...
: "... In making these perforations, the perforator cuts small round pieces of paper, known in the art as ''chads'', out of the tape. These ''chads'' are objectionable ... ''Chadless'' tape is prepared by feeding blank tape through a device which will not punch a complete circle in the tape but, instead, will only cut approximately three-quarters of the circumference of a circle ... thereby leaving a movable, or hinged, lid of paper in the tape."
In the ''
New Hacker's Dictionary'', two unattributed and likely humorous derivations for "chad" are offered, a
back-formation
In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the c ...
from a personal name "Chadless" and an
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
for "Card Hole Aggregate Debris". Other etymologies claim derivation from the
Scottish name for river gravel, ''chad'', or the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
slang for
louse
Louse ( : lice) is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been recognized as an order, infraorder, or a parvorder, as a result o ...
, ''chat''.
Partially punched chad
When a chad is not fully detached, it is described by various terms corresponding to the level of modification from the unpunched state. The distinctions are of importance in counting cards used in voting. The following terms generally apply when describing a four-cornered chad:
*Hanging chads are attached to the ballot at only one corner.
*Swinging to the ballot at two corners.
*Tri-chads are attached to the ballot at three corners.
*Pregnant or dimpled chads are attached to the ballot at all four corners, but bear an indentation indicating the voter may have intended to mark the ballot. (Sometimes "pregnant" is used to indicate a greater mark than "dimpled")
2000 United States presidential election controversy
In the
2000 United States presidential election
The 2000 United States presidential election was the 54th quadrennial United States presidential election, presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. Republican Party (United States), Republican candidate George W. Bush, the gover ...
, many
Florida votes used
Votomatic-style punched card ballots where incompletely punched holes resulted in partially punched chads: either a "hanging chad", where one or more corners were still attached, or a "fat chad" or "pregnant chad", where all corners were still attached, but an indentation appears to have been made. These votes were not counted by the tabulating machines. The aftermath of the controversy (see ''
Bush v. Gore
''Bush v. Gore'', 531 U.S. 98 (2000), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. On December 8, th ...
'') caused the rapid discontinuance of punch card ballots in the United States.
See also
*
Bit bucket
In computing jargon, the bit bucket (or byte bucket) is where lost computerized data has gone, by any means; any data which does not end up where it is supposed to, being lost in transmission, a computer crash, or the like, is said to have g ...
*
Chinese paper cutting
The art of paper cutting ( zh, t=剪纸, p=jiǎnzhǐ) in China may date back to the 2nd century CE, when paper was invented by Cai Lun, a court official of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
As paper became more affordable, paper-cutting became one ...
*
Confetti
Confetti are small pieces or streamers of paper, mylar, or metallic material which are usually thrown at celebrations, especially parades and weddings. The origins are from the Latin ''confectum'', with ''confetti'' the plural of Italian ''con ...
, recycling chad for celebratory use.
*
Keypunch
A keypunch is a device for precisely punching holes into stiff paper cards at specific locations as determined by keys struck by a human operator. Other devices included here for that same function include the gang punch, the pantograph punch, ...
—Card punch
*
Papel picado
Papel picado ("perforated paper," "pecked paper") is a traditional Mexican decorative craft made by cutting elaborate designs into sheets of tissue paper. Papel picado is considered a Mexican folk art. The designs are commonly cut from as many ...
*
Paper tape
Five- and eight-hole punched paper tape
Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop
Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage ...
*
Punched card
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...
*
''Recount'' (film)
*
Teleprinter
A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Initia ...
—Teletype
References
External links
{{commons category, Chads
Snopes – Origin of 'Chad'on chad
BBC Newson chad
Papercutting Art
Punched card
2000 United States presidential election in Florida
2000 United States presidential election
Election technology
Vote counting
Ballots