Burning Questions 4: Electric Boogaloo

Wow, it's fast and furious time with the Burning Questions! If this keeps up, I'll have to start charging! Erbo asks: Who put the "bop" in the "bop-sh-bop-sh-bop"? Who put the "ram" in the "ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong"?

In 1864, a crack unit of telegraph operators, operating under the guise of government officials, made contact with an alien race known as the Sh'fhr'hug'gnon through the use of a prototype telegraph device, known only as 'the Persuader'. Over the course of 3 years, an interstellar conversation progressed, during which time a mutually beneficial artificial language was developed to aid in comprehension between the newly-contacted aliens and humanity. Assessing the need for secrecy in this endeavor, it was determined that a mutation of the Morse Code would be the perfect implementation of this language.

However, the 'dits' and 'das' then in current usage were deemed to be unfit to carry the nuances of this fledgling language (known thereafter as 'Interspeke'), and thus a new vocabulary was born, replacing the 'dits' and 'das' with 'bomps', 'bops', 'dip da dips', and 'rams', among other innocent-sounding phonemes.

Unfortunately, due to the operators' imperfect understanding of the nuances of Sh'fhr'hug'gnon society, a devastatingly odious insult was delivered to the head of affairs on the other side of our galaxy, and it seemed that interstellar was was imminent. By this point, however, the governmental bodies of the World had been apprised of the situation, and a secret society had been constructed, with its only aim being the development and proliferation of weapons with which to destroy the incoming invaders.

After a pitched and heated battle lasting over 3 weeks, the Earth had finally claimed victory over the Sh'fhr'hug'gnon, and its technology was absorbed into the archives of human knowledge. Using this technology, the newly-constructed secret society (whose name is so secret that I cannot even set it down here) deployed an 'amnesia beam' to selectively erase the memories of worldwide humanity, leaving no trace of any of the events of the previous horrific period of history.

Some lingering racial memory, however, must have remained, for musician Barry Mann awoke from a troubled sleep one night to write "Who Put the Bomp?"

And there you have it, Erbo. Never let it be said that Akela neglects an earnest query.

From a starship over Venus to the Sun
But it's a crime, you're mistaken
Momentary seizure of love
-- "Hot One", Shudder To Think