Telegram Style - Telegraphic Coded Expressions

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