Roger
Encyclopedia : R : RO : ROG : Roger
Roger is primarily a proper name of English, French and Catalan usage which means "famous with the spear" from the Germanic elements hrod/"fame" and ger/"spear."
The name "Roger" was transmitted to England by the Normans after the Norman Conquest along with other names such as William, Robert, Richard, and Hugh. It replaced its Anglo-Saxon and Danish cognate, Hrothgar.
The Latin form of the name is Rogerius, and this was the name of a few medieval figures (see Rogerius).
Radio
The word is also used in radio communications to indicate receipt of a message. From around 1938 it was the British and American military phonetic for the letter "R" abbreviation for "Received," later replaced by "Romeo."
In the old days of radio when Morse code was still used, radiomen used the letter "R", dot dash dot (di-dah-dit) as a quick way to transmit acknowledgement of transmissions or as a "yes." When voice radiotelephony was developed, the old radiomen stuck to the "R" as meaning yes. Since the phonetic alphabet for "R" then was Roger, the carryover was a natural logical development.
It is still used today in military parlance to acknowledge the receipt of a command or orders, i.e. "Roger, returning to base" or "Roger that"." With the widespread use of cell phones and SMS (Short Message Service) or "text" messaging, Roger is slowly being replaced by "K" for OK outside of military use.
"Roger" can also be used in place of "10-4"
Slang
It is also a short version of the term Jolly Roger which refers to a black flag with white skull and crossbones, formerly used by sea pirates since as early as 1723.
It has an old (1711) vulgar slang usage as a verb where it means to have sexual intercourse with a woman. Used of a man. After a number of comic references throughout the late 20th century, in the late 1990's the word 'roger' as a sexual act came back into more frequent use, chiefly amongst the young, male, upper class intellectual elite.
From c.1650 to c.1870 it was slang for the word "penis."[link]
People
Only name
- Roger I of Sicily, Norman ruler of Sicily
- Roger II of Sicily, Norman ruler of Sicily
- Roger, bishop of Worcester from 1163 to 1179
First name
- Roger Adams, Nobel Prize chemist
- Roger Bacon
- Roger C. Carmel, American character actor
- Roger Clemens, baseball player
- Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who
- Roger Ebert, motion picture critic
- Roger Federer, Swiss tennis player
- Roger Galera Flores, football (soccer) player for Corinthians in the Campeonato Brasileiro
- Roger Frugardi, medieval surgeon
- Roger Maris, baseball player
- Roger Milla, Cameroon International footballer
- Roger Miller,American musician
- Roger Moore, English actor most famous for his role as James Bond
- Frère Roger, baptised Roger Louis Schutz-Marsauche, initiator of the Taizé Community
- Roger Sheaffe, British general in the War of 1812
- Roger Sherman, American revolutionary, signer of many famous documents, inventor of congressional system.
- Roger Whittaker, British singer
- Roger Waters, English rock musician and songwriter
Fictional characters
- Roger the Alien, fictional character from American Dad!
- Roger Chillingworth, the fictional antagonist in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
- Roger Rabbit, main cartoon character of the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Roger Wilco, the fictional protagonist of the Space Quest game series
- Roger the Shrubber, fictional character from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Roger Fox, a character from the comic FoxTrot
- Roger (Tekken), a character from the fighting game series Tekken.
- Roger Jr. (Tekken), son of the above character.
- Roger Davis, musician and ex-druggie of RENT
References
[being used as a slang meaning for penis from c.1650 to c.1870] - information from the Online Etymology Dictionary.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.