Telegraphic Coded Expressions
Through the history of telegraphy, very many dictionaries of telegraphese, codes or ciphers were developed, each serving to minimise the number of characters or words which needed to be transmitted in order to impart a message; the drivers for this economy were, for telegraph operators, the resource cost and limited bandwidth of the system; and for the consumer, the cost of sending messages.
Examples of telegraphic coded expressions, taken from The Adams Cable Codex, Tenth Edition, 1896 are:
- Emolument — Think you had better not wait
- Emotion — Think you had better wait until -
- Emotional — Think you had better wait and sail -
- Empaled — Think well of party mentioned
- Empanel — This is a matter of great importance.
and from The A.B.C. Universal Commercial Electric Telegraphic Code
- Nalezing — Do only what is absolutely necessary
- Nalime — Will only do what is absolutely necessary
- Nallary — It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be an advantage
- Naloopen — It is not absolutely necessary, but well worth the outlay
Read more about this topic: Telegram Style
Famous quotes containing the words coded and/or expressions:
“We are built to make mistakes, coded for error.”
—Lewis Thomas (b. 1913)
“Its idea of “production value” is spending a million dollars dressing up a story that any good writer would throw away. Its vision of the rewarding movie is a vehicle for some glamour-puss with two expressions and eighteen changes of costume, or for some male idol of the muddled millions with a permanent hangover, six worn-out acting tricks, the build of a lifeguard, and the mentality of a chicken-strangler.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)