The Origins of Tedle

I worked as a liner accountant for a shipping agency early in my career and basically did the accounting for the various carriers we represented when the vessels would call any of the ports within our area. They would run up husbandry costs, dunnage costs, wharfage, towing and any number of shipping specific items which always required a good deal of paper work and hence accounting. One of the carriers which I worked on was a Steamship Company in India. They were represented by a general agent in NY to cover the North American market.

The job required a good deal of communication and authorization for the various charges and each vessel required its own accounting report in order for the owners to determine the cost of each vessel voyage which would ultimately determine the profitability or lack thereof of each sailing. With each vessels departure we were therefore often called upon to communicate with the general agents to determine the allocation of some of the more general costs which were attributable to the operation rather than a specific vessel. 

In this case, my communications were conducted with a wonderful man by the name of Prat Patel who was the traffic manager for the carrier in New York and pretty much directed all of the affairs of the carrier in North America. On my first occasion to call him I quickly introduced myself (Ted Le Blanc) and told him I was the new hire and would be tending to the accounting. In his most pleasant voice and with a heavy accent said “I’m sorry but I failed to hear your name”. So I repeated “Ted Le Blanc”. 

“What a pleasure to make your acquaintance Tedle” was the reply. 

I could barely keep myself from breaking out in a howl but also didn’t have the heart to correct him so from that day forward for the several years I performed the accounting duties for the carrier I was Tedle whenever speaking with Mr. Patel and so commenced “Tedle” often misunderstood but its worth the laugh.