Telephone

Telephone

The telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other. Developed in the mid-1870s by Alexander Graham Bell and others, the telephone has long been considered indispensable to businesses, households and governments, is now one of the most common appliances in the developed world. The word "telephone" has been adapted to many languages and is now recognized around the world.

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Famous quotes containing the word telephone:

    But even in a telephone booth
    evil can seep out of the receiver
    and we must cover it with a mattress,
    and then tear it from its roots
    and bury it,
    bury it.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    The telephone gives us the happiness of being together yet safely apart.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.
    Robert Benchley (1889–1945)