HOWTO use a phone (1917)

The 1917 Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company publication "How to Use the Telephone, 1917" is a clear, sensible guide to managing your "delicately adjusted instrument," including useful tips like finishing your calls with "good-bye" so that the other party doesn't suppose that the operator has cut them off.

How to Use the Telephone, 1917

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Gadgets • happy mutants • Old school • telcoms

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paulj

I’m disappointed that they went with Edison’s suggestion of “hello” rather than Bell’s (and Montgomery Burn’s) “ahoy”.
Paul Renault

When did “Smith and Brown. Mr. Brown speaking” become “Thank you for calling Smith and Brown, purveyors of fine widgets. Your call is very important to us, so please listen carefully to the entire menu, as it has changed recently…”

Aside from fact that that”‘changed recently” was eighteen months ago, if they really cared about:
1) the english language, they’d say “So that your call is properly directed, please listen carefully to the menu…” and
2) if they really cared about my call, I’d be speaking to a human being.

A few governments ago in New Brunswick, one Minister, frustrated with calling his own Ministry offices and getting voice-mail-menu hell, decreed that any government phone number that was published in the phone book MUST be answered by a human being.
- Just_Ok
  
  mais, en anglais et francais, ne c’est pas?
  - Paul Renault
    
    You’re both right, Just(in?) and Robert.
    
    Here goes:
    “Thank you for calling Smith and Brown, purveyors of fine widgets. Merci d’avoir appellé Smith and Brown, deux têtes carrées qui ne parlent pas du tout le français. Your call is very important to us, so please listen carefully to the entire menu, as it has changed recently. Votre appel nous tient à coeur, c’est pourquoi nous vous demandons de faire tout le travail. Ceci dit, veuillez écouter attentivement et choisir de parmi les options du menu suivant, qui n’a pas changé depuis que le présent système téléphone fut installé en 2002.”
    - chgoliz
      
      *snort*
      
      If only they really were that honest.
- http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch
  
  “Changed recently” is a standard phrase that’s put into interactive voice response menus regardless of whether the menu has actually changed or not. It’s calculated to force the caller to listen to the menu options rather than just hit “1″ or “0″ immediately. It’s just one of those things.
Chandler Lewis

Regarding “ahoy”: Since we’re pretty near a century into this phone business, can we institute a new answering phrase immediately, since clearly the age of the landline is over?

I suggest “o hai.”
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  If I don’t recognize the number, I usually go with moshi moshi.
  - http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch
    
    There are other ways to answer a telephone that I’ve heard of. “Go,” for example. Or “Yes?” “What!” is sometimes popular. And once I got a long drawn-out “Uh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h hu-h-h-h-h-h-h-h?” Sometimes you’d get a business name but it was muffled or cut off, and you’d feel like an idiot asking if that was such-and-such business. Which presumably they’d just said.
    
    Then there’s “This is (name).” That was my standard for answering my work number. Apparently I said it so often that it became nearly robotic. Some people thought they’d reached voicemail.
    - ldobe
      
      Similar thing happened to me when I was working at radioshack fresh out of high school. “RadioShack on $streetcorner, your Sprint AT&T and Boost mobile provider, you’ve reached $myName. How can I help you?”
      
      They had all the employees practice it in the back room 3 times a week. I think it’s called brainwashing? Anyway I started inadvertently doing that when answering the home and cellphones.
      
      I also started reading off times to people in dollars and cents. What time is it? “4 dollars and 59 cents…. oh! four fifty-nine.”
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      I had a job at which I answered the phone by saying Nine Long followed by my first name. After a few years, I was upgraded to Fourteen Long. And half the time that I answered the phone, there was a frat boy surgical intern on the line. Endless hilarity.
    - Paul Renault
      
      Heh, a friend’s father used to answer the phone with “Go ahead!”
      - Felton / Moderator
        
        That’s a bit like the Italian phone-answering word, “pronto,” which means “ready.”
  - xiagang
    
    The Chinese version is “wei” [喂]. If you add that to moshi moshi you’ll confuse the hell out of people, especially if they actually know either Japanese or Chinese…
- http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis
  
  I always go with, ‘what are you wearing?’
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    And if he replies, “A teddy and a gas mask”…….?
    - http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
      
      European or African?
nixiebunny

Modern distractions include watching for other cars approaching your lane.
ChronosFT

It seems we have always had to instruct people on how to behave with technology. Things aren’t really different now than 100 years ago.
ROSSINDETROIT

This advice probably didn’t help then and it wouldn’t help now. I’ll spare you my rant about bad phone protocol.
Speaking of communication problems does anyone else find that the text appearing in the comment box as they type is several seconds behind? Like something on the page is slowing everything down?
- http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog
  
  “Bad phone protocol:” A few weeks ago someone called me on a phone I rarely use; my first assumption was “wrong number.” When I answered, a woman on the other end started griping me out and asked if I enjoyed wasting her time. I told her she had the wrong number, speaking of wasting one’s time. She said “Wait isn’t this 6— Oh.” And she hung up. I Googled her phone number and it turns out she’s a hooker.
- nixiebunny
  
  Perhaps all those twinkling stars on the sides of the page?
  - ROSSINDETROIT
    
    Yeah, probably. It scrolls really slow and jerky for me, and seems to be driving the CPU usage way up when this page is open.
  - voiceinthedistance
    
    The twinkling stars are payback for those who complained about the baby blue BG.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Last night, the star field was alternating with a plain blue background every half second or so to form a nice seizure-indicing strobe effect.
      - Paul Renault
        
        I was going to ask about that: on my screen, the stars only blink on the left side.
      - smallteam
        
        My God, it’s full of stars.
timquinn

Unless you’re the boss in which case just do it any old way you want and the person on the other end had better just get on with it and not disturb him again, especially with silly questions about his ad layout.
TheMadLibrarian

The new cell phone feature I’ve found most annoying is that many cell phones in my area now automatically add a computer-generated “Thank you — goodby” when the caller hangs up. Callers seem to think that relieves them of having to courteously end the conversation.
- nixiebunny
  
  It disguises dropped calls, thereby increasing the reported call completion rate for the board meeting.
  - smallteam
    
    and any municipal regulatory agencies
pjcamp

Where’s the part about driving with your knees?
Felton / Moderator

I thought you were supposed to finish with “I’m going to hang up the telephone now!!”
BijouxBoy

No-one says “goodbye” in fictional tv/film phone calls. Always seems rude.
Historybuff

If only there was an etiquette book for modern mobile users.

Though half of them probably couldn’t read it anyway unless it contained phrases like “put down U phone bro”.
misadventures213

“Bloodhoud Detective Agency…whenever there’s trouble we’re there on the double…Mr. Bloodhound isn’t here…”
smallteam

Good ol’ Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone (C&P), telephony provider of my youth!
niktemadur

How to use a phone:
1. Light cigar.
2. Put feet up on desk, under circular wormhole of another man holding a phone.
3. ???
4. Profit!
CLamb

My telephone calls to a business usually go like this,

“Hello, Ravens & Crane”.
“This is Charles Wooly, may I speak with Mr. Crane please.”
“Certainly, may I say who’s calling?”
“Sure, go right ahead.”
“???”