“Why do press releases end in -30-?” asked one of my fellow consultants this morning. Press releases (or news releases, depending on your preference) often finish with -30-, -END- or XXX. As a communications professional, my friend knew what -30- signalled, but was interested in finding out the reason for the shorthand.

The tale handed down to me — as to other press release writers — is that, in the olden days of public relations, PR people sometimes put XXX to show the end of a Telex transmission. Some smart aleck interpeted XXX as Roman numerals and converted it to 30. When fax machines became all the rage, more and more people were transmitting press releases and 30 became more popular than ever.

However, I wasn’t sure how true this story was. A Google search revealed a few rumours about US Civil War telegraphers using 30, but I couldn’t find a citation. So I asked the MetaFilter community why press releases end with 30 — and asked for some references. About 35 minutes later, someone replied with a link to the Western Union 92 code of 1859. Telegraph operators ended transmissions with 30.

So the 30 predates the US Civil War (1861) and Telex (1935), not to mention faxes and email. I assume few telegraphers used Roman numerals: XXX in Morse is “-..- -..- -..- “, whereas 30 is a quick “…– —–“. But I’ll keep checking. There’s bound to be a telegraphy hound who can tell me.

(c) 2005 by Andrea Coutu. Vancouver Marketing Consultant. All rights reserved.