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The pipe, the horn

Posted by ESC on May 23, 2001

In Reply to: Illustration posted by R. Berg on May 22, 2001

: : : Usually used when people want to call someone on the phone. Wondering if anyone had any idea about its origin.

: : The horn is the phone. For example, people also say "I'm on the horn" during a call. I'm guessing that this nickname came from the shape of early receivers, which were roughly cylindrical with one flared end.

: Click below for a Web page that shows one such model. If link is missing, use www.cybercomm.net/~chuck/we20al.html

I have one factlet to add: THE PIPE; THE HORN - "slang for the telephone since the late 1950s." From Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from Our Lively and Splendid Past by Stuart Berg Flexner (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982).

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