The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1909-08-23
.LIMITSCODE WORDS
TO FIVE LETTERS
Western Union Strikes at Con-
densed Messages by Fixing
Rates on New Basis
Short Circuits Mutilation 0
Language by Lovers
and Merchants

The Western Union and the Pos
tai telegraph companies will, after
December 1, short circuit the mu-
tilation of the English language
by use of telegraphic codes, ar
order having been issued that after
that date any word not to be found in
a standard dictionary will be allowed
only five letters and the telegraph1o
rates will be made on that basis.
This, the officials of THE company
say, has become absolutely necessary
the commercial telegraph world hav-
Ing been swamped with combinations
of letters so fanciful, so wondrous In
their dazzling array that an operator
is driven to nervous prostratlon al
most in sending them over the wire
ana that they are greatly hamperine
the working capacity of the company
Thus. a brain tagged operator having
thrust before his blurred vision the
following cold blooded and brutal as
sault on genealogical science,
"Psbytgeraq tqrhjkwu' is at loss to
know whether it is an extinct animal
printers ''pi' line, an Intentional per-
petration or budding insanity on his
part. In his heart of hearts he knows II
probably means Send me two cars pei
sample No. AZ by first outgoing
freight But that does not help him
in his agony.
1T MYsTIFIEs MAY
Why merchants and others do not use
words in the English language is 9
mystery to Adolph Fl. May, local super
intendent of the Western Union. He
says that by the elimination of such
horrors the merchants will be given q
10 oil N he
of rapidity OF dispatch, but also in re-
gard to the elimination of errors.
The business world is not the only
object of assault. Lovers there be
newly married wives and iurried hus-
bands, fancees with brand new dia-
mond winking happily on the THIRD
finger of the left hand, who in times OF
they receive telegram something like
the following:
'Wnipevolqrrr."
What this means to the recipient is
a matter of romance and poetry. What
it means TO the operator is matter
of sizzling profanity Hereafter the
lover who desires to say that las he
gazed at the stars dotting the velvety
heavens and heard the gentle signing
of wind passing through the pines, his
thoughts harked to her who by the
had lifted him out of the prosaic state
of single contentment into the exalted
haven of erosial doubts" must use
Noah Webster or pay space rates.
CODE OF LOVERS
The lovers codes are usually arranged
by the woman in the case and it has been
the experience of the company that 9
woman who seriously sits down tc
combine letters into code evolves a
something so black in its hideousness
so horrible in its ingenuity that il
would drive to raving frenzy all but
the particular little clay god to whom
it is sent. A woman's mo" may NEAR
yes, but the experience of the tele-
graph company is that a woman's
'rtupozq' means four closely writer
pages of persifiage, a dissertation or
her emotional tendencies and 10000
kisses.
In the face of the order the mer-
chants are revising their code books
What the lovers are doing in a mys-
terry unto themselves.