Podcast 90 - Telephone words and expressions

Story starts at 14:07

Hello and welcome back to Practising English. And today I'm going to be talking about phones, telephones and telephone language. That is, words and expressions we use around using the phone and also some expressions we use when talking on the phone. I think this is a b1 session, but b2 students will also be interested. At the end, there is a little story about a conversation on the telephone. Okay, so here we go!

Words describing phone use

Talking on the phone

I think it's interesting, actually, that the language we use to talk about the mobile phone, by the way, in American English, that's called a cell phone and in British English it's usually a mobile phone or mobile. 'Where's my mobile? I've left it on the table!' 'My mobile', people will say. What I was saying was, anyway, that there is a similarity between the language we used to use for the more traditional desk phone or landline, landline, as we say in British English, and the mobile phone of today. So there's some language which is still the same.

For example, with the mobile phone we still talk about to dial a number which is to push the numbers that you need to call somebody or ring somebody. And on the traditional telephone or desk phone, there used to be a circular dial. A dial is circular and [we] used to turn it to the different holes in the dial to dial the number. And we also talked about to pick up the phone, which was really when you picked up the receiver of the landline or the desk phone and put it to your ear. To pick up the phone or we say to answer the phone as well. 'Can you answer that? The phone is ringing?' The phone is ringing, we say and then there's another word when you finish the conversation - a phrasal verb, in fact, to hang up. So you hang up the phone when you have finished speaking. And that surely goes all the way back to those very old phones that you may have seen in an antique shop or perhaps on a an old film where you did literally hang up the receiver on a hook when you finished the conversation. And we still use that word today, don't we? To hang up when you finish the conversation. The past tense of hang by the way is hung and past participle hung as well. 'Have you hung up' or we can just say to put the phone down, which often means just to finish the conversation.

Expressions used when telephoning

Okay, so when you're on the phone, you dial the number and then perhaps you might hear a tone. It's called a tone, like this. beep beep beep beep beep and that tone is an engaged tone so we say the phone is engaged. The other possibilities, of course, is if it's not engaged, you get a ringtone or ringing tone. If the phone is engaged, it means you can't get through. So you can't make a connection to the person you want to speak to. We also use that phrase 'you can't get through' if you telephone a business where there may be a receptionist who will put you through to the person you want to speak to. She or he, the receptionist, will say for example,

I'm just putting you through.

I'm just connecting you to the person you want to speak to and if you don't get through, we say that 'I couldn't get through to John today on the phone'. I couldn't get through.

And something else we say as well on the phone, which is typical phone language and we don't say it really outside the area of telephones, is when somebody asks you to wait because they need to look for a pen perhaps to write something down. They will say,

Please hold the line.

And we only say that on the telephone. So it means to wait.

It's interesting, we use a word sometimes if we don't know who we're talking to. We may call that person, caller. Especially the person who's received the telephone call or receptionist, for example. So she may say or he may say,

Hold the line please caller.

The other thing that's interesting on the telephone, and it's a strange thing, I suppose about the English language in general, is that when we identify ourselves over the phone, we usually say this is or it's - so we use the third person to identify ourselves. So we wouldn't identify ourselves saying I'm Mike. 'Hello, I'm Mike. Can I speak to John please?' We would say, this is Mike, or it's Mike here or,

It's Mike speaking. Can I speak to John please?

The reason for that, interestingly, is because in English, if we can't see the person we are talking to, then we use the third person so it would be the same, for example, if you knocked on the door. Somebody is inside an office and you don't open the door. You knock on the door and the person inside the office would say 'who is it?' Not, who are you? And you outside the office would say, 'it's Mike' or 'this is Mike here'. I think I would say 'it's Mike'. And then if you open the door, then you say, 'Hello. I'm Mike!' That's fine! When you can see the person, we say, 'I'm Mike' and 'who are you?' But you can't say that if you can't see the person.

I mean, I could go on and on, actually. It's quite an interesting point. Two people in the dark, and they can't see each other. 'Who is it? Who's there?' 'It's me. It's Mike.'

Okay, so the next thing is that if a receptionist answers the phone, she may ask you,

Can I take a message?

if the person you want to speak to isn't available. 'Can I take a message?' or you could ask the receptionist,

Can I leave a message, please?

And then the receptionist may say,

I'll get him to call you back. I'll get John to call you back.

Okay, so to call back means to return the call. Or perhaps you may say, as the caller,

Shall I call back later?

Shall I telephone again later on.

Mobile phone manners

The other thing I wanted to talk about is this new cultural issue about mobile phone manners. It's something which is often the subject of B1 or B2 articles and comes up, for example, in exams - in articles that you read. So the language about the mobile phone is something that you need to know for any exam that you're doing. A B1 or B2 Cambridge, perhaps, especially in my own experience, I would say Cambridge exams. They talk about mobile manners - often things you should and shouldn't do when using the telephone.

One thing, for me, I think something I find really annoying is when you are in a train. Here in Seville, there's a lovely train, a high speed train, which goes from Seville to Madrid, the capital of Spain. It's a lovely quiet train, usually. In fact, you can actually ask for a 'quiet' carriage where nobody is allowed to use the phone and children are not allowed either! It's wonderful! If you don't have the chance to get into a quiet carriage, well then there is still a rule on the train that you mustn't speak on your mobile phone. You must get up and go to an area between the carriages where you can talk to somebody. Then I find that very bad manners when people do speak on the phone, in the train carriage, and you can hear all their conversation - and it's really extremely annoying.

People should switch off their phone when they are on the train or put it into silent mode, so it doesn't ring, and not answer the phone if anybody does call. So we talk about switch on and switch off your phone.

There's another interesting thing I always find quite fascinating. Years ago, if you walked along the street talking to yourself, people would think you're crazy. But these days, it looks like people are doing exactly that. Because they are wearing a hands free wireless bluetooth earpiece, which is that contraption or device that you insert into your ear, and you can talk to people without picking up the phone itself. It looks like people are walking along the street talking to themselves. Presumably they're not. And if they were, well, they would go unnoticed these days.

Okay, so that's all I'm going to say about the mobile phone. There's lots of relevant mobile phone and phone language there. I'm going to finish with a little story. The story is a little joke really.

An important thing to know, first of all, are the names of the two people in the story. One is a Mr Knott. Now, Knott as a surname in English is quite a common name. And it's spelt K-N-O-T-T. Mr Knott, which sounds very much like 'not', N-O-T, doesn't it? This particular Mr Knott is actually called William Knott. So his first name is William and in English we often make a diminutive of that name, or we use a shorter version of that name - Will. So his name is Will Knott. The other person in the story is Mr Watt This is not spelt W-H-A-T but W-A-T-T. Again, Watt is quite a common surname in English. In fact, most schoolchildren learn that there was a famous inventor of the Watt steam engine, who invented or rather improved the old steam engine, steam train in 1776. So he is famous as being an inventor. So Watt is quite a common surname. Okay, so, I'm going to tell you the story. It's quite brief. But the idea is to listen carefully to the dialogue and the confusion that takes place.

Mr Knott and the phone call

Phone conversation story

Mr Knott was a professor at a University and he worked hard. He was quite an elderly man now and when he got home he was usually quite tired, and he didn't want anybody bothering him. He lived alone and spent his time at home, studying and marking essays, and he would go to bed quite early.

Now one evening he was just about to go to bed when the phone rang. Mr Knott picked up the phone and he said,

'Who's speaking please?'

'Watt.'

'What is your name, please?'

'Watt's my name!'

'That's what I asked you! What's your name?'

'I've just told you! Watt's my name! Could you tell me who I'm speaking to?'

'Will Knott.'

'Well, why not? Are you David Jones?

'No, I'm Knott!'

And they both hung up, thinking how rude the other man was!

And if you're a little confused about that conversation, well, if you come over to Practising English.com and read the transcript, you will see the spelling of those words and understand the confusion that took place in the conversation.

Okay, thank you very much. Until next time! Goodbye for now!

Learn lots of phrases to use when speaking on the phone...