The Write Way

29 September 2006

Telephone Line

Greetings,

I've told you before about the little seaside town we lived in when our kids were born. One of the great things about it was its very smallness; it had a population of around 5,000 when we lived there in the early 70s, and this meant you tended to know lots of people.

I'd always allow an extra 30 minutes "chatting time" for any trips to the shops, especially once the children arrived ... People love babies, don't they?

We still had a manual telephone exchange back then, and our number was 1001, which you'd assume indicated that there were only another 1000 phone numbers before ours was connected ... I told you it was small.

When our son was just a tiny tot, he'd often pick up the phone to talk to the operator if I was in another room, and the woman would then ring our number to tell me if he hadn't managed to put the phone back on the hook properly.

I usually rang the Love of My Life each afternoon to chat, and sometimes when I dialled the exchange and gave his number, the operator would say, "Oh, he's just trying to ring you now, Darl," before connecting us. And while these days, we'd all probably have a pink fit at the very idea of such an "invasion" of privacy, back then, I thought it was t'riffic. As a young, first-time mum, 100+ kilometres from my family, I was always comforted by the thought all I had to do in an emergency was pick up the phone and yell.

I was reminded of those halcyon phone days last week when I made a startling discovery that I'm about to share with you now ... 

Ready?

It happened when I was attempting to contact a major company about something or other (the exact details have been obliterated from my memory banks as a result of the aforementioned startling discovery ... It just drove every other thought from my tiny mind).

I'd keyed in the number, pressed 1 to go to the menu for a relatively simple task, then I'd pressed 4 and 2 and 1 again to go deeper into the mire, then 3 to be connected to an operator. Then I waited and listened to a plastic rendition of the William Tell Overture so bad it made my teeth hurt before an earnest voice came on the line and told me how important my call was to them all at XYZ Corp.

After several more minutes of music (and I use the term loosely), another voice came on, and this it was that solved one of those Eternal Mysteries of the Modern World ... 

The voice said, and I quote, "Thank you for waiting. Your call is important to us. You'll shortly be connected to a customer service consultant. Your call may be recorded for training porpoises."

Aha!

Now we know!

Not only are you trying to communicate with call centre operators from a different country when you phone your local Telco, bank or ... (fill in the blank with a company of your choice), you're actually trying to communicate with a whole different species!

And knowing this, dear reader, you have to ask yourself these questions:

Do aquatic creatures care that your car konked out 100 k's from home?

Do denizens of the deep give a damn that your DVD player died?

Do our finny friends give a flying fart that your fridge just defrosted all over your fancy floor?

In a word?

No.

What to do with this new-found knowledge?

A couple things spring to mind ...

Hmmm ... Right. 

And the first is to grab a nice big piece of cardboard (plain or coloured, the choice is yours), a pot of paint in a contrasting hue, a large brush and then, in letters writ large, paint a sign that reminds you "couple" is a noun, and as such it requires, nay demands, to be followed by "of" in such expressions.

The word means:

1. Two items of the same kind; a pair.
2. Something that joins or connects two things together; a link.
3. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
   1. Two people united, as by betrothal or marriage.
   2. Two people together.
4. Informal. A few; several: a couple of days.
5. Physics. A pair of forces of equal magnitude acting in parallel but opposite directions, capable of causing rotation but not translation

Dictionary.com explains, "The phrase a couple of has been in standard use for centuries, especially with measurements of time and distance and in referring to amounts of money: They walked a couple of miles in silence. Repairs will probably cost a couple of hundred dollars. The phrase is used in all but the most formal speech and writing. 

"The shortened phrase a couple, without of (The gas station is a couple miles from here), is an Americanism of recent development that occurs chiefly in informal speech or representations of speech."

There! Now you know and can concentrate on devising complex plans to wreak vengeance on companies that drag poor sea creatures from their watery homes to work in call centres! 

While on the subject of words to describe numbers of things ... All my life, I've had a very clear understanding in my own mind of terms used to do this ... F'r instance, to me, a always refers to one of something, and a couple has always meant two and two only. And I'm sure you're all nodding and agreeing with me on this. Where we're going to come to blows is in the next level of numbers, and already I can sense a faint furrow in your brow as you glance sideways and mutter about that mad Aussie ...

However, in for a penny, in for a pound, so to continue ... With the same single-mindedness, a few has always been associated (again, as far as I'm concerned) with a half-dozen. A few equals six. No doubts in my mind, and that's what I always mean when I say, "I'll be out for a few hours." If I leave at 9 am, I mean I'll be out till 3 pm.

For the same reason (i.e. none), several has always meant more than six but still countable, and lots refers to more than can be counted.

See? It's a quite logical progression from one to more than you can poke a stick at ... and after looking up the definitions in several dictionaries, I'd just like to say that my system is much more sensible!

Just have a look at these for definitions:

few: an indefinitely small number of persons or things

several: being more than two but fewer than many in number or kind; being of a number more than two or three but not many

lot: a large amount or number of people or things

I rest my case ...

If you share your life with a couple or a lot of students, here's something to help them get their new term (or semester) off to the best possible start ... at least where essay writing is concerned. 

This week's quiz:

Match up these communications words so you can understand your nearest friendly porpoise:

analogue, algorithm, digital, baud, hertz, PABX, broadband, roaming, frequency modulation, Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line, 

1. digital technologies that provide consumers a signal switched facility offering integrated access to voice, high-speed data service, video-demand services and interactive delivery services 

2. the speed at which modems communicate. Technically, it is the number of changes in an electronic signal per second 

3. signaling method that varies the carrier frequency in proportion to the amplitude of the modulating signal 

4. signals that can represent an infinite range of numbers 

5. a modest speed, limited distance, local access solution using a single regular telephone pair 

6. unit of frequency, which equals cycles per second

7. use of a wireless phone outside of the "home" service area defined by a service provider

8. signals that can represent distinct whole numbers

9. audio, video and data coding, the step-by-step mathematical process or procedure (often including repetition) providing suitable encoding, compression and/or encryption for a specific application 

10. telephone system that many offices have, allowing extensions for each telephone, and a connection to the main telephone system 

And a short story about ...Well, everything we've chatted about this week ...

As an administrative assistant at a chiropractic office, I called an insurance company to verify benefits for a patient. Although the call was important, I couldn't reach a human being, only a recording.

"Thank you for calling," said the message. "Our office will be closed until two o'clock as we enjoy our Customer Appreciation Week Celebration."

No comment.

Last week's quiz:

Let's see how in tune you are with your adventurous side ... 

base-jumping, inrun, corking, piste, burble, frap, AAD, boogie, schuss, flare

1. to ski straight downhill as fast as possible - SCHUSS

2. the act of suddenly slowing down by presenting a large horizontal surface area to the relative wind - CORKING (From the perspective of others who are still in the vertical (fast) posture, the "corker" appears to pop up, much like a cork held under water, then released.)

3. groomed ski course or groomed trail - PISTE

4. jumping from fixed objects - BASE-JUMPING. BASE is an acronym for Buildings, Antennae, Spans (bridges) and Earth (cliffs).

5. the part of a ski jump on which the skier is traveling down the ramp, building up speed for the take-off - INRUN

6. getting killed in a skydiving accident - FRAP

7. a device that senses rate of descent and altitude and which will attempts to mechanically activate the reserve parachute if the skydiver passes below a set altitude at a high rate of descent - AAD (Automatic Activation Device)

8. rough air or vacuum just above a body in freefall - BURBLE

9. the act of pulling down the brakes of the canopy in order to slow it down, resulting in an increased angle of attack and reduced descent rate - FLARE

10. gathering of skydivers, usually focused on fun rather than competition - BOOGIE

Still on the subject of telephones ... sort of ...

Two work crews were putting in telephone poles. At the end of the day the foreman asked the first crew how many poles they had done. 

"Twelve," was the answer.  

"Not bad," replied the foreman.  Then he asked the second crew how many poles they had put in.  

"Two," came the reply.   

"Two?" shouted the foreman. "The others did twelve and you did two?"  

"Yeah," answered the leader of the second group. "But look how much they left sticking out of the ground."

Archives

A Little Something Extra

We all do it ... we pick up the phone, press a few buttons and chat to people across the street or across the globe ... and we think nothing of it. But have you ever wondered how phones work?

Then here, for your viewing pleasure, is the answer to that nagging question!

How telephones work  

And with diagrams 

How mobile (cell) phones work 

And a more detailed explanation   

Word of the week: Impignorate (vb) to pledge or pawn

This beaut word comes from the Latin (where else?) impignorare meaning 'to pawn.' 

If you want a noun to go with this, it's pignoration, 'the act of pledging or pawning; the taking of cattle doing damage, by way of pledge, till satisfaction is made.'

So now if you feel the need to pledge your first-born in order to get seats to some great show, you have just the word to do it!

Oxymoron of the week: helpful customer service

And a Latin phrase that may give comfort next time you're pressing numbers on a phone in the vain hope you'll finally get connected to a real person ...

Vita contin git. Vive com eo.

[WEE-tah KOHN-teen GEET. WEE-way KOHM AY-oh] 

Life happens. Live with it.