Paolo Bellutta <bellutta@irst.it> (08/23/90)
contact!ndallen@uunet.uu.net (Nigel Allen) writes: >I think Alexander Graham Bell once proposed "hoy-hoy" as the >appropriate way to answer the phone. In Italy the typical answering phrase is "pronto" (= ready). Paolo Bellutta I.R.S.T. vox: +39 461 814417 loc. Pante' di Povo fax: +39 461 810851 38050 POVO (TN) e-mail: bellutta@irst.uucp ITALY bellutta%irst@uunet.uu.net
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (08/23/90)
In article <11193@accuvax.nwu.edu> bellutta@irst.it (Paolo Bellutta) writes: > In Italy the typical answering phrase is "pronto" (= ready). I was taught that the proper phrase in Spanish for answering a phone is "Diga me", literally "Speak to me", but, at least from what I have observed in Mexico, the most common phrase is just "Bueno", literally "Good". Probably different Spanish speaking countries have different idioms. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
root@cs.tcd.ie (08/24/90)
> Henry Troup <bnrgate!bwdlh490.bnr.ca!hwt@uunet.uu.net> writes that in > UK he was taught to answer the phone with the number, but that in > North America this is not done. Here in Ireland, when I was in school we were told to answer the phone with our number as a help to people using payphones. At that time the payphones in use here were the same as those intoduced by the U.K. Post Office around the 1930s. To use them the caller inserted the fee, dialled the number (local calls only) and when the called party answered, pressing button A connected the call and deposited the coins. If the called party announced his/her number upon answering, it assured the payphone user that the correct number had been obtained. In the event of reaching a wrong number, the caller could simply hang up and redial without paying again. The practice of answering calls with the number seems to be a minority practice in Ireland these days, but it is still common in Britain. The type of payphone described has long since been banished from the U.K., but some examples still survive here.
GUYDOSRM@snyplava.bitnet (Ray Guydosh) (08/25/90)
Reflecting on recent comments about how the telephone is answered in various countries, whatever is it that the resident of Fiji says when he answers the telephone in the AT&T television ad?
cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) (08/27/90)
If I forgot to say so: it's my OFFICE phone that gets answered with
the number ("number" restricted to the 4 digit extension in a Centrex-
type system, where I'd have to dial 9 for outside calls). But it's
apparently RESIDENCE phones from which I received rare recoreded
messages announcing what number I had just reached.