The Death of the Telegram

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From their website:

"Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage."

1844-2006 RIP

(I've never sent or received one STOP)

― andy --, Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link

No way!

― RoxyMuzak© (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:26 (eighteen years ago) link

this is very sad STOP

― dancing chicken (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:26 (eighteen years ago) link

I once thought about doing this for a girlfriend who lived in New York. I was going to send a telegram to her coffeeshop, but the cost of doing so was going to be like thirty dollars.

So sad, but won't miss anything.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:27 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.radiold.com/telegraph/tel_34.jpg

FOR SALE CHEAP

― andy --, Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:28 (eighteen years ago) link

I was thinking about telegrams recently, about how you probably only got one if you were 100 years old*, or if someone had died in combat, so if you got one and you weren't 100, you would know it was bad news.

I've no idea if this is actually true, but that's the only things that seem intrinsically linked to telegrams in the media. Is this true? Has anyone here actually ever received a telegram?

(*traditional centenarian message from the Queen in teh UK - my great-aunt got one)

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:29 (eighteen years ago) link

They still use the sound on some news progams, it's become the sound of hot news even if it is 150 years old: Dutta Dat Dutta DAAT, really fast like.

It's such an American symbol, Westward expansion and all that. I guess IM took care of that.

― andy ---, Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:32 (eighteen years ago) link

um, the dadda dat sound is a teletype isn't it?

Anyway, sad, although I wasn't aware that Western Union was even still doing telegrams.

― Dave will do (dave225.3), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:35 (eighteen years ago) link

PonyRider1846: Dude, why hit Colorado Gap when you can just do teh text?
ExpressMan69: i gotta use my HoRsE for somethign! LOLL!

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:36 (eighteen years ago) link

MMm, teletype machine or maybe the old glass ticker tape machine?

― andy ---, Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:37 (eighteen years ago) link

the fast little stabs at the end of almost every news theme tune (which often continue indefinitely, or for at least 30 seconds or so, so that the engineer can fade it down whenever he pleases) almost certainly derive from the sound of morse code . "dant! danna-dunt! dant! dant! dant! dunna dant!"

i've never received or sent a telegraph

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:40 (eighteen years ago) link

or even a telegram!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:40 (eighteen years ago) link

But, if you were getting bad news, a telegram would signify "this is bad" and mentally prepare you for *something* before you read it, would it? I would hate to get a "someone had died" message by text if I wasn't expecting bad news - texts aren't for that. I think I like the idea of a telegram, but I can't quite explain it.

(xpost)

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:41 (eighteen years ago) link

YR BOI WZ MSSNG BLVD DED WTF LOL!!1! LUV DA ARMY WTF

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link

In old movies it was a way to send congrats, too, always after a big debut... the starlet would drink champagne while telegrams were rushed in... BREAK A LEG STOP SEE YOU IN MONACO STOP etc.

― andy ---, Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link

it must have been quite titillating to send messages once requiring a writing-desk, several paragraphs and a facility with a pen through this public, electronic system

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:50 (eighteen years ago) link

of course it wasn't public the way the internet is public; one always had a confidante, usually female, right?, who would take your message and code it up to be sent

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:51 (eighteen years ago) link

Telegraph fiction! - "Carrie, the Telegraph Girl"

http://www.burnettcounty.com/oldnews/carrie.html

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Anthony Trollope describes the life of the big-city telegraph girl, as he finds it, in a slightly creepy but sometimes beautiful essay here: http://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/nonfiction.TelegraphGirls.html

"Every minute of late attendance is entered in a black book, because, or as was explained to me, the late attendance of a girl might too probably involve the late dispatch of a message. And how would it be if some gentleman who wanted his horse at the covert-side punctually at eleven should lose his run with the foxhounds because some lady found herself too comfortable in bed."

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 01:00 (eighteen years ago) link

i never got a telegram but i sent one home once, from moscow, just because i could.

― emsk ( emsk), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 03:05 (eighteen years ago) link

http://60spunk.m78.com/image/5americans6.jpg

― Chairman Doinel (Charles McCain), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 03:14 (eighteen years ago) link

haha I sent one to ryan adams once, for real, it was business though.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 03:20 (eighteen years ago) link

telegrams still exist, even if western union hae stopped doing em. i have no idea who delivers or receives them in the UK, but i sent one to my girlfriend from a small town in siberia, and she got it, X days/weeks/months later, in an envelope, as though it was a letter.

it was very expensive even by western standards,but i forget how much. people still send telegrams in russia, as emsk verifies.

― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 10:52 (eighteen years ago) link

HI RYAN STOP ONSTAGE TANTRUMS ADVERSELY AFFECTING SALES STOP TRY TO KEEP IT IN PANTS STOP IF I DONT ANSWER LEAVE MESSAGE TEENY

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 11:46 (eighteen years ago) link

I tried to send a telegram once (for the sheer novelty) and was told it would cost around $90. Which is a little too novel.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 14:57 (eighteen years ago) link

"Visiting his agent Grant intercepted a telegram from a journalist writing a profile asking, "How old Cary Grant?". Grant sent a reply saying "Old Cary Grant fine, how you?"."

― Dadaismus (Dada), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 15:00 (eighteen years ago) link

"Dear Thatcher.."

― Ste (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 15:00 (eighteen years ago) link

Lucky Day: Reading telegram: "Three Amigos, Hollywood, California. You are very great. 100,000 pesos. Come to Santa Poco put on show, stop. The In-famous El Guapo."
Dusty Bottoms: What does that mean, in-famous?
Ned Nederlander: Oh, Dusty. In-famous is when you're MORE than famous. This man El Guapo, he's not just famous, he's IN-famous.
Lucky Day: 100,000 pesos to perform with this El Guapo, who's probably the biggest actor to come out of Mexico!
Dusty Bottoms: Wow, in-famous? In-famous?

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 15:05 (eighteen years ago) link

"dear thatcher. please STOP"

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 15:08 (eighteen years ago) link

a treat for OMD fans here: but who needs telegraph/anyway?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 15:10 (eighteen years ago) link

one of my favourite record sleeves ever, too:

http://www.omd.uk.com/discography/singles/images/tel_7.jpg

http://www.omd.uk.com/discography/singles/images/tel_12.jpg

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 15:12 (eighteen years ago) link

Telegraph girls were objects of some fascination for a while; there was anxious debate as to whether they'd be exposed to lewd messages from anonymous perv telegraphers, etc. I don't know where those guys are supposed to go now, though.

― Stephen X (Stephen X), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 16:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Pant pant STOP

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 16:12 (eighteen years ago) link

N.O.R.W.I.C.H.

― beanz (beanz), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 16:14 (eighteen years ago) link

i had always hoped in this age of teXt0ring we might resuscitate the old telegraph slang..

88,

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link

what's that, c on t's?

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 16:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Like any other language, Morse has its patois--a corrupted version of the purer speech used by the inexperienced or by those to whom nature has denied the finer perceptions of timing and spacing. This patois might be called "hog-Morse." It would be quite impossible to give even a rude idea of the humor contained--for the expert--in some of the corruptions of which hog-Morse is guilty. These consist largely in closely joining elements which ought to be spaced, or in separating others that are meant to be close-coupled.

In the patois of the wires "pot" means "hot," "foot" is rendered "fool," "U. S. Navy" is "us nasty," "home" is changed to "hog," and so on. If, for example, while receiving a telegram, a user of the patois should miss a word and say to you "6naz fimme q," the expert would know that he meant "Please fill me in." But there is no difficulty about the interpretation of the patois provided the receiver be experienced and always on the alert. ...

The mere sound of the styles of some transmitters is irresistibly comic. One of these natural humorists may be transmitting nothing more than a string of figures, and still make you chuckle at the grotesqueness of his Morse. It is an every-day thing to hear senders characterized as Miss Nancys, rattle-brains, swell-heads, or cranks, or "jays," simply because the sound of their dots and dashes suggests the epithets.

http://earlyradiohistory.us/1902slng.htm

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 16:54 (eighteen years ago) link

@@!!!!1111

it means "love and kisses," teeny

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 16:55 (eighteen years ago) link

apptly telegraph work, esp in rural areas, was a big pink-collar job. the numbers of women operating them led to at least a few confirmed stories of "romance over the wires" which led to massive rumorage about the occupation and of course moralizing health-crisis bs. the "victorian internet" indeed

― geoff (gcannon), Thursday, 2 February 2006 01:34 (eighteen years ago) link

I always associate those with Zombie scores for Argento/Romero films &c. The evening news theme makes me think of fake blood.

― Abbott (Abbott), Thursday, 2 February 2006 01:47 (eighteen years ago) link

four months pass...

NYT piece on famous telegrams. Includes FLEE AT ONCE — ALL IS DISCOVERED.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 22:32 (eighteen years ago) link

These are great! I love this one:

Mark Twain, like most writers, found it easier to write long than short. He received this telegram from a publisher:

NEED 2-PAGE SHORT STORY TWO DAYS.

Twain replied:

NO CAN DO 2 PAGES TWO DAYS. CAN DO 30 PAGES 2 DAYS. NEED 30 DAYS TO DO 2 PAGES.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 28 June 2006 04:25 (eighteen years ago) link

I've posted this elsewhere, but what the hell. Irate telegram my (gay) Uncle Winsor received after writing something unflattering about a performance of Ms. Bennett's. He framed it. I seem to have inherited it.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 28 June 2006 23:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Thats fabulous! Its like the rude random email of the thirties =) I love it.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 29 June 2006 00:09 (eighteen years ago) link

The people lamenting the passing of the telegram at the start of the thread are funny. What, do they have nostalgia for the 1890s?

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Thursday, 29 June 2006 00:17 (eighteen years ago) link

amirite?

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 29 June 2006 00:22 (eighteen years ago) link

joan bennett was a goddess.

― aimee semple mcmansion (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 29 June 2006 01:56 (eighteen years ago) link

you bet it's great to be a movie star!

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Thursday, 29 June 2006 22:27 (eighteen years ago) link

That's my motto.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 30 June 2006 00:39 (eighteen years ago) link

what's with all the random small caps?

― you bet it's great to be a movie star. (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 30 June 2006 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link

YR BOI WZ MSSNG BLVD DED WTF LOL!!1! LUV DA ARMY WTF
-- Onimo (gerry.wat...), January 31st, 2006.

oh my god this is great

― lf (lfam), Friday, 30 June 2006 01:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Looks like a Mark E Smith outtake...

― Jack Battery-Pack (Jack Battery-Pack), Friday, 30 June 2006 06:04 (eighteen years ago) link

A lot of postcard printers have shut down here as well.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Friday, 30 June 2006 06:11 (eighteen years ago) link

I sent a telegram once to a mate who had borrowed a PC from me to finish his album, but never returned it, I didn't know his address so I sent it to the pub that he drank at.

I was very drunk at the time.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 30 June 2006 07:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Some years ago the South African mother of a friend of mine received a telegram from the Queen on her 100th birthday. She became agitated, thinking the telegram was a fake, because the Queen was not VICTORIA.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:59 (eighteen years ago) link

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