Some of the most exciting information comes by way of "the grapevine." That is so because reports received through "the prapevine" are supposed to be secret; the information is all "hush huush". It is whispered into your ear, with the understanding that you will not pass it on to others. You feel honored and excited - you are one of the special few to get this information. You cannot wait. You must quickly find other ears to pour the information into. And so, the information, secret as it is, begins to spread. Nobody knows how far.

The expression "by the gravevine" is nore than 100 years old, but it has lost nothing of its youth. It remains one of the most widely used phrases in the American language.

The American inventor, Samuel F.B. Morse, is largely responsible for the birth of the expression. Among others, he experimented with the idea of telegraphy, sending messages over a wire by electricity.When Morse finally completed his telegraphic instrument, he went before Congress to show that it worked. He sent a message over a wire from Washington to Baltimore. The message was:"What God hath wrought." This was on May 24, 1844.

And so, telegraphy was born. Everybody heard the news with great excitement. Everybody, it seems, but the author of "Walden", Henry David Thoreau. He wondered if men had anything to say that was worth sending by electricity. But Thoreau was a loner, a dreamer. Few shared his ideas.

Quickly, companies began to build telegraph lines from one place to another. Men everywhere seemed to be putting up poles with strings of wire for carrying telegraphic messages. The workmanship was poor and the wires were not often put up straight.

One was so badly built that people hoked about it. They said it looked like a grapevine. A large number of the telegraph lines looked just as funny, going in all directions, as crooked as a grapevine.And so was born the expression, "BY THE GRAPEVINE."

Some writers believe that the phrase would soon have disappeared, were it not for the American Civil War. Soon after the war began, military commanders started to send battlefield reports by telegraph.

Then something strange happened. Beside these true reports, all sorts of wild rumors and false stories were being received in different places. These false reports spread quidkly. They spread so tast that people believed there were "grapevine telegraphs" sending messages from a number of different places.

One soon heard the phrase, "BY THE GRAPEVINE" to descripe false as well as true reports from the bbattlefield. There was a mystery about these reports. People wondered where much of the secret information came from. It was like a game:Was it true? Who says so?

Now, as in those far off Civil War days, getting information by the grapevine remains something of a game. A friend brings you a bit of strage news. It may be shocking. "No!" yu say, "It just can't be true. Who told you?" Comes the ansere, "Shush. The grapevine."

You really have to be something of a genius to know how much, if any, of the information that comes to you "by the grapevine" is true - or false. Still, in the words of an old American saying, the man who keeps pulling the grapevine shakes down at least a gew grapes.