h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Our dials always went clockwise, and returned anticlockwise to deliver the measured pulses.

You call the dial also a "dialer" which besides being US-style spelling is not an elegant word. I would recommend its omission.

The title could be changed to limit your field to "Telephone terms arising from early handsets" or something.

Are you interested in correcting the telephone entry A273584 (quoted in the March calendar) which credits Antonio Meucci's invention to Alexander Graham Bell (who stole it from him)?

I am not interested in updating the "Invention of the telephone" entry.

I like my title - your smacks of Wikipedia. I'll have a look at the other points.

I still have to write the section I promised on AC/DC voltages in the telephone.

How was Greece Gnomon?

Good to hear you're going to add the voltage stuff!

HELL

Fair dues. Sorry to bring up the clockwise thing; that was a genuine post 21

Would you like to mention the mystery of why the lead to the handset gets so horribly twisted? The user normally picks up the phone with one hand, changes it over once in the course of the conversation and puts it down with the second hand. If people had different habits they might cancel each other out (left-right and right-left) but the placing of a phone normally favours one hand over the other, and it is usually used predominantly by one person.

If people were aware of this they might take care to change ears twice (or any even number of times) thus nullifying the problem; or simply change hands (not so as to add a twist, the other direction) while putting the phone down. But people in general don't want to find this out, or despair of its being so easy as it actually is.

Everywhere I go I unwind phone leads. This is my way of Leaving The World A Better Place.

That's an interesting topic, and one I hadn't thought to include in the entry, but one I am interested in. I'll have to think about it.

I've added two sections at the end of this: one on the phone lead getting tangled, and one on the voltage levels used to drive the phone and the impossibility of using the phone as a defribilator.

What do people think?

Impossible to use it as a defibrillator... But possible to use it as a battery charger... That is probably not allowed, right?

Great Entry! With the new bits it's become a real 'Gnomon' Entry.

HELL

This is excellent. Informative and not too y. You have untangled the lead story elegantly.

You retain 'dialer' . . . OED mentions this spelling, but refers you to its entry under 'dialler' which says

Dialler, dialer
1. One who makes a survey of mines by the aid of a ‘dial’ or compass.

1747 HOOSON Miner's Dict. Riij, This Roofing..if done by a skillful Dialer, and by a Dial that he is acquainted with..is certain enough. 1778 W. PRYCE Min. Cornub. 204 In the same manner the Dialler takes his second measurement.


2. A device for dialling telephone-numbers automatically.

1969 Daily Tel. 3 Feb. 4/5 The first batch of ‘card diallers’numbers prestored on cards which automatically dial a number when ‘punched’is also due for field trials shortly. Ibid., The automatic diallers are expected to benefit businesses mainly with a large volume of regular calls. 1971 Sci. Amer. June 90/3 As a prototype for a bubble mass-memory we have designed and built a ‘telephone repertory dialer’, a device for storing 50 to 100 frequently called telephone numbers.


I thought you'd like the bit about the device for storing 50 to 100 numbers . . . state of the art 1971. About the spelling: you notice that the early 18th century English spelling was 'dialer', subsequently changed to 'dialler'. A lot of current US spelling is like early 18th cent British ('honor' for instance. TCD still uses 18th-cent English in its officialdom, which is why I have an Honors degree).

About the etymology of 'dial' OED says "Presumably a derivative of L. dies a day, through a med.L. adj. dilais daily (repr. in Du Cange by diale = diurnale ‘as much land as could be ploughed in a day’, and dialiter adv. daily.) Outside Eng., however, dial is known only from a single OF. instance in Froissart, in which the dyal in clockwork is said to be ‘the daily wheel (roe journal) which makes a revolution once in a day, even as the sun makes a single turn round the earth in a natural day’. This would answer to a med.L. rota dialis: the transition from ‘diurnal wheel’ to ‘diurnal circle’ is easy. But more evidence is wanted."

And its primary meaning is of course sun-dial

I say:

"On the front of the phone was a circular device called the dial (or dialer)."

'Dial' was the normal name in the UK and Ireland, while it was called 'dialer' in America. That's why I put that in. Is it wrong?

I then say:

"The word 'dial' at that time meant the face of a clock, which was itself normally circular. The circular thing on the phone looked like a clock dial, so it came to be called a dial as well."

Are you disputing this? The derivations you give say where the word "dial" for the face of a clock came from, but I'm taking that as given and explaining how it came to be applied to a phone.

Sorry, Gno, my reputation for disputation is catching up on me.

I wasn't questioning anything other than the spelling 'dialer' which, now that you reveal that it was intended as the US alternative, makes perfect sense. The rest of the stuff above was simply by the way, not intended to affect the entry. Apologies.

However, aren't we supposed to stick to Brit Eng for entries? I would have no complaint at all if you wrote "dial (US: dialer)" or the like. I gather you are implying that they did not use the word 'dial' in the US.

I am indeed implying that the word "dialer" was the norm in the States. I've amended it as you've suggested.

well now it's perfect.

Glad to hear it. All we need now is a passing scout.

Bob-a-job week, is it?

B

what noone picked it already????

HELL

Actually I'm not convinced that the cord turns through 360degrees in the transfer from right hand to left (or vv) and back to the cradle. I think that it is only 180.

In New Zealand it does the ring ring pause as well, and our emergency number is 111, not any 9's at all.

I just unravel my cord once a week or so; it's easier for me than trying to remember how to hold it!! I'm directionally challenged ... my doctor is always telling me, "Your OTHER right".

If it was 180 degrees, then the handset would be facing upwards rather than downwards. It has to be some multiple of 360 degrees.

i think it would be 180 degrees, if you think that the speaker up to your left ear facing right, then you must turn it 180 degrees so it faces left into your right ear.