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)
“Many expressions in the New Testament come naturally to the lips of all Protestants, and it furnishes the most pregnant and practical texts. There is no harmless dreaming, no wise speculation in it, but everywhere a substratum of good sense. It never reflects, but it repents. There is no poetry in it, we may say, nothing regarded in the light of beauty merely, but moral truth is its object. All mortals are convicted by its conscience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)