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From: Chris Croughton <chris@keristor.net>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: mobile phone numbers and land lines
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 13:19:05 +0100
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On 12 May 2005 17:03:58 -0700, credoquaabsurdum
<credoquaabsurdum@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I've been out of the States for a while now, and I'm fishing around for
> inforation about what's going on in the English-speaking world
> regarding the linguistic conventions of modern telecommunications.
>
> A learner asked me the other day about something rather simple, and I
> couldn't come up with a thousand percent sure answer.
>
> Has some kind of new convention sprunt up in The World regarding
> traditional, Ma Bell-type numbers?
>
> Do we now call them something special to distinguish them from
> mobile/cell(ular) phone numbers?
Most people in the UK that I know use "land line" (or "landline"). That
seems to be a recent (last few years) take-up of the term by ordinary
people, it was in common military and technical usage a decade or so ago
but at that time it seemed to be regarded as 'jargon'.
> Given that cell phones have increased in importance in the last five
> years, have we now adopted some hitherto unknown terms that used to
> describe the number that connected to the thing on our walls that go
> ring-ring? Regular phone, land line, etc.?
Many people in the UK don't differentiate the type of numbers when they
say them, that may be because they are distinctive: numbers starting 01
or 02 are landlines, ones starting 07 are either mobile or 'personal'
numbers, 08 are "diferently charged" numbers (0800 and 0888 free, others
are at 'national' rates), 09 are 'pay a lot' numbers.
> The Greeks routinely call them "stationary" phones and "mobile" phones
> when they feel it necessary to distinguish twixt the two, so there is a
> good deal of confusion about this. Moreover, in Greek adjectives can
> act as nouns with disconcerting ease, so "Call me at/on my mobile," or
> "Call me at/on my stationary," are in daily usage.
"Call me on my mobile" (but not 'at') is common UK usage, the
alternatives being "landline" or sometimes "house phone" or "home phone"
or "call me at home". "... on/at my stationary" would not be good
English (although 'mobile' has made the transition to a noun easily,
'stationary' and 'regular' haven't).
Germans use 'handy' for mobile phones...
> Greeks also say "regular" phones, and "regular" is a far easier
> adjective to translate than "stationary," so this is the first time I'v
> run up against this one in five years of teaching here.
An increasing number of people now use 'voice mode' to refer to
communications where one speaks rather than email, and will also use
'talking' to refer to email/usenet/irc/etc., so I often hear "I was
talking to Fred on IRC" or "do you want to talk voice-mode or on email?"
> I am aware that differing US/UK conventions might further complicate an
> explanation.
You do come up with some interesting topics <g>...
Chris C
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