Why Are TV Pilots Called Pilots?

"Pilot” is a word most often associated with a person who flies a plane. It can be used as a verb meaning “to act as a guide to” or “to set the course of,” which makes sense with the airplane pilot theme.

 "Pilot" originally comes from the Greek pedon, meaning “steering oar.” It has been used in English as a verb in the sense of guiding direction as far back as the 1510s. Around 1907, it became a noun meaning “one who flies an airplane.” 

The phrase “pilot studies” is common in the field of research to determine the feasibility of a scientific theory. 

Less clearly, it can also be used to describe the first episode of a TV series.

The OED's earliest example dates to a 1953 edition of Sponsor magazine (aimed at TV advertisers). “As an indication of new show costs, the pilot for ABC’s new Danny Thomas situation-comedy film came to a higher tab than I Love Lucy.” 

Why are these TV episodes called "pilots"? It is another etymological mystery. I couldn't find agreement on an origin. They do seem to be designed “to set the course of” the series. They are a kind of “test flight” for the show's concept. They are similar to a “pilot study."

The TV industry has a "Pilot Season," which is the annual time for testing new show ideas. It traditionally was from January to April, but streaming services have disrupted this rhythm, producing pilots year-round. A pilot episode is a standalone sample for a potential series. networks use them to decide which ones get picked up for full seasons. Some of these pilots never get picked up, and that one episode is all there is of the concept, and they are never seen by the public. 

Writers pitch ideas in summer, networks order scripts in fall, pilots are filmed in winter and executives review and choose which shows to greenlight by spring. These pilot episodes are often quite different from the rest of the series, as the writers are figuring out the concept. 

Why are these TV episodes called "pilots"? It is another etymological mystery. I couldn't find agreement on an origin. They do seem to be designed “to set the course of” the series. They are a kind of “test flight” for the show's concept. They are similar to a “pilot study."

Watch the pilot for Seinfeld (a series I love), which was when the series was going to be called "The Seinfeld Chronicles," and you'll see many differences.

For example, the pilot features a waitress named Claire instead of Elaine Benes. Elaine was added later to balance the cast with a stronger female presence. Kramer’s name was originally “Kessler” due to legal concerns about using the real name of Larry David’s neighbor. The quirky traits that define Kramer were also less pronounced. George is more of a neurotic Woody Allen type in the pilot, rather than the Larry David-inspired character he becomes later. Instead of Monk’s Café, the gang hangs out at a generic luncheonette. The pilot leans heavily on Jerry’s stand-up routines to frame the story. It lacks the interwoven plotlines and ironic twists that later became signature to the show’s storytelling. The dialogue is slower, the humor more subdued, and the overall vibe more conventional than the sharp, self-aware rhythm that defined later episodes.

In the Nick of Time

Sometimes I come across an origin story that makes me shake my head and wonder, "Is this for real?" That was how I felt when reading about the phrase “In the Nick of Time” which has come to mean an action performed just before it is too late. 

It seems to have originated in the 18th century. People kept track of the money they owed to creditors with a stick - a tally The stick was carved with the number of days you had until the loan was due. If you paid before the last nick, then you didn’t owe interest on the debt. You made it in the nick of time.

Loanwords and Other Borrowings

I have posted a series of articles here recently about the words that have entered English from French, a process that began with the French-Norman conquest of England in 1066. Some people might refer to those words as "loanwords." But are they loanwords? 

A loanword is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. 

"Loan" or "borrow" may seem like odd descriptive words considering that nothing is taken away from the donor language and there is no expectation of returning anything, as in our typical usage of those words.

I had to research the term, and it gets more complicated. Loanwords may be contrasted with calques, in which a word is borrowed into the recipient language by being directly translated from the donor language rather than being adopted in (an approximation of) its original form. 

Some calques in English:
A word, skyscraper, from French gratte-ciel, literally to “scrape-sky.
A phrase, "moment of truth" from Spanish, "el momento de la verdad," meaning a critical turning point.
Superman comes from the German Übermensch, a Nietzschean concept, that later becomes the comic hero.
Brainwashing originates with the Chinese xǐnǎo (洗脑), literally translated as “wash brain.” 
Adam’s apple is a Latin borrowing of pomum Adami, a Biblical reference to the forbidden fruit.

The word "loanword" is itself a calque from German lehnwort, meaning a word borrowed from another language.

We also distinguish loanwords from cognates, which are words in two or more related languages that are similar because they share an etymological origin in the ancestral language, rather than because one borrowed the word from the other.

Here are a few -
          English  | Cognate Language  |  Cognate Word and Meaning

• Animal Spanish/French animal A living creature
• Hospital French/Spanish hôpital / hospital Medical facility
• Family French/Spanish famille / familia Group of related people
• Minute French/Spanish minute / minuto Unit of time
• Telephone French/Spanish téléphone / teléfono Communication device

Examples of loanwords in the English language:
 café (from French café, which means "coffee"), bazaar (from Persian bāzār, which means "market"), and kindergarten (from German Kindergarten, which literally means "children's garden"). 

Here's an oddity - the word calque is a loanword, while the word loanword is a calque
Calque comes from the French noun calque ("tracing; imitation; close copy"). Loanword and the phrase loan translation are translated from German nouns Lehnwort and Lehnübersetzung (German: [ˈleːnʔybɐˌzɛt͡sʊŋ]

Loans of multi-word phrases, such as the English use of the French term déjà vu, are known as adoptions, adaptations, or lexical borrowings.

Although colloquial and informal register loanwords are typically spread by word-of-mouth, technical or academic loanwords tend to be first used in written language, often for scholarly, scientific, or literary purposes.