[ti:Grapevine]
[ar:Warren Scheer]
[al:WORDS AND THEIR STORIES]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]Go to 51voa.com for more...
[00:10.00]Now, the VOA 
[00:12.61]Special English program 
[00:15.08]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
[00:18.86]Some of the most 
[00:21.95]exciting information comes 
[00:25.04]by way of the grapevine.
[00:27.98]That is so because reports 
[00:31.92]received through the grapevine 
[00:34.36]are supposed to be secret. 
[00:37.54]The information is 
[00:39.68]all hush hush. 
[00:41.57]It is whispered into your ear 
[00:44.66]with the understanding that 
[00:47.59]you will not pass it on to others.
[00:50.78]You feel honored and excited. 
[00:54.56]You are one of the special few 
[00:57.89]to get this information. 
[01:00.63]You cannot wait. 
[01:03.17]You must quickly find other ears 
[01:06.90]to pour the information into. 
[01:10.24]And so, the information 
[01:14.12]- secret as it is 
[01:16.46]¨C begins to spread. 
[01:19.19]Nobody knows how far.
[01:22.88]The expression by the grapevine 
[01:27.60]is more than one hundred years old.
[01:30.94]The American inventor, 
[01:34.42]Samuel F. Morse, 
[01:36.61]is largely responsible 
[01:38.55]for the birth of the expression. 
[01:41.35]Among others, he experimented 
[01:45.64]with the idea of telegraphy 
[01:48.03]¨C sending messages over a wire 
[01:51.56]by electricity.
[01:53.90]When Morse finally completed 
[01:57.48]his telegraphic instrument, 
[01:59.52]he went before Congress 
[02:01.66]to show that it worked. 
[02:03.70]He sent a message over a wire 
[02:07.98]from Washington to Baltimore. 
[02:11.42]The message was: 
[02:14.20]"What hath God wrought?" 
[02:17.79]This was on May twenty-fourth, 
[02:21.77]eighteen forty-four.
[02:23.61]Quickly, companies began 
[02:27.74]to build telegraph lines 
[02:29.58]from one place to another. 
[02:32.02]Men everywhere seemed to 
[02:35.31]be putting up poles 
[02:36.45]with strings of wire 
[02:38.44]for carrying telegraphic messages. 
[02:41.83]The workmanship was poor. 
[02:45.32]And the wires were not 
[02:47.96]put up straight.
[02:49.35]Some of the results looked strange. 
[02:53.48]People said they looked 
[02:56.63]like a grapevine. 
[02:58.32]A large number of the telegraph lines 
[03:03.00]were going in all directions, 
[03:05.63]as crooked as the vines 
[03:08.52]that grapes grow on. 
[03:10.31]So was born the expression, 
[03:14.54]by the grapevine.
[03:16.68]Some writers believe that 
[03:19.88]the phrase would soon have disappeared 
[03:22.56]were it not for the American Civil War.
[03:25.90]Soon after the war began 
[03:29.63]in eighteen sixty-one, 
[03:31.57]military commanders started 
[03:34.51]to send battlefield reports by telegraph. 
[03:38.09]People began hearing the phrase 
[03:41.08]by the grapevine to describe false 
[03:45.11]as well as true reports 
[03:47.40]from the battlefield. 
[03:48.69]It was like a game. 
[03:50.48]Was it true? Who says so?
[03:54.11]Now, as in those far-off Civil War days, 
[04:00.04]getting information 
[04:01.88]by the grapevine remains 
[04:03.92]something of a game. 
[04:05.11]A friend brings you a bit of strange news. 
[04:09.20]"No," you say, "it just can't be true! 
[04:12.69]Who told you?" Comes the answer, 
[04:15.43]"I got it by the grapevine."
[04:18.02]You really cannot know how much 
[04:21.80]¨C if any ¨C of the information 
[04:23.50]that comes to you by the grapevine 
[04:25.44]is true or false. 
[04:27.28]Still, in the words of 
[04:29.77]an old American saying, 
[04:31.36]the person who keeps pulling 
[04:34.00]the grapevine shakes down 
[04:35.89]at least a few grapes.
[04:37.68](MUSIC)
[04:42.00]You have been listening to 
[04:44.20]the VOA Special English program 
[04:46.25]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES. 
[04:49.09]I'm Warren Scheer.