Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: bones to phones

Riesco solo a trovare significati piuttosto letterali...qualcuno sa se si 
tratta di una frase idiomatica?
E' il titolo di un capitolo che parla dei vari tipi di comunicazione...cosa 
cavolo intende?
Grazie in anticipo a chi risponderà...

Pat ha scritto:
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Maybe the first form of communication that we know of involved bones? It 
would say so in the text, I dare say. Google does come up with some 80 
results. Pretty suspicious.
FB

 ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:44a991b2$0$5097$4faf...@reader2.news.tin.it...
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No, it doesn't say. I mean, that's about modern means of communication. I 
can understand that the expression is related to communication evolving, but 
I can't find a good Italian translation.
I'm sorry you're suspicious as I used Googles and dictionaries anyway before 
asking...if it's so disturbing for you why on earth did you bother replying? 

 ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:l2oqg.26012$zy5.5...@twister1.libero.it...
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I think that what seems "suspicious" to FB is the fact that Google comes out 
with _only_ 80 results... if it had been an idiomatic expression, you would 
have found many thousands of them!
Maybe the expression omits an initial "from": "from bones to phones" is 
perfectly comprehensible, if the text is about communication means and their 
evolution.
However, there is another possible explanation, if the chapter lies more on 
the technical side. Communication networks have main structures made of 
high-capacity, high-speed lines, comparable to motorways in a road network: 
they are named the network "backbones", usually translated into Italian as 
"dorsali" (you should know what a backbone is in biology and medicine).
Enrico 

Pat ha scritto:
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Since I didn't know the answer myself, I didn't expect it from you 
either. What I meant is that it seemed unlikely that 80 people had come 
up separately with the same expression. And there may be some more 
relevant "from bones to X".
FB

 cavolo intende?
http://www.google.it/search?hl=it&q=bone+phone&btnG=Cerca&meta=
Kiuhnm

 relevant "from bones to X".
ma quante volte ve l'ho detto di non fermarvi alle prime due righe delle
cose che leggete? tutti quei risultati si riferiscono a un unico articolo,
questo:
www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20051113000625131
e la frase delle ossa e dei telefoni si spiega qui:
"a history of the Skull and Bones secret society, Paulo Freire¹s Pedagogy
of the Oppressed, the science of x-rays, edible weeds found around
Winnipeg, interpretations of the biblical apocalypse, and the history of
computer hacking and phone phreaking".
cribbioŠ

"Bones to phones
Radio survived, the cat piano didn't. Books are still here but the fire
harmonica isn't. Why do some media die while others live on, asks Margaret
Wertheim
WITH NO books, no tv, no internet, just how did our forebears exercise
their minds around the campfire back in Palaeolithic times? One pastime
seems to have been bone-notching. Across Europe and the Middle East, early
humans took to etching parallel lines and crosses into pieces of bone. Why
they did this is still a mystery, though present thinking is that 
*** the bones served as tally sticks or even a form of lunar calendar.***
Whatever their purpose, the bones were clearly important or they would not
have been used for so long蟻bout 90 000 years. "I doubt very much that any
form of media we have today will survive anything like as long," declares
Bruce Sterling with heartfelt admiration."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16422095.000.html

"The Squash Delivery Boy" ha scritto...
(..)

I have cosniderable difficulties in considering bones, or even
calendars, as "a form of media", whatever Bruce Sterling may
say.
In any case, some might be interested in the famous Ishango
bone:
http://www.simonsingh.com/The_Ishango_Bone.html
bye
Gennaro 

 Kiuhnm
Gennaro 

 una frase idiomatica"?
Senza un contesto come si fa a risponderti?
Quella frase non mi sembra più idiomatica di "djvu to pdf".
Kiuhnm

 Kiuhnm
bye
Gennaro 

 tali).
Comunque nei primi link si parlava di un "bone phone", ma vedo che non 
c'entra niente.
Kiuhnm

thanks everybody!
I will explain it in English anyway, and then if they ask me for a proper 
translation...maybe "dalle ossa ai telefoni" will be my choice... 

"k b 3" <k...@DONOTSPAMyandex.ru> wrote in message
news:a7qqg.26092$_J1.3...@twister2.libero.it...

"Backbone", referring to the main trunk lines in a communications
system, is never abbreviated as "bone".
The most likely meaning of the phrase, albeit uncommon, is the
allusion to banging bones together as a form of communication and the
eventual evolution to the modern telephone.
Joe from Massachusetts