Conditions under which otherwise polite persons feel that they can be rude are those attendant on a telephone conversation. With the first word many a man drops his courtesy as if it were a garment that did not fit him. And women do the same. If “Central” were to record all that she (it seems to be usually a “she”) hears, and all that is said to her, our ears would tingle. True it is, that she sometimes is surly, pert and ill-mannered. But if she is ill-bred, that is no reason for the person talking to follow suit. Were one really amenable to arrest for profanity over the wires, the police would be kept busy if they performed their duty.
But putting aside the underbred who swears, let us listen for a moment to the so-called courteous person,—for he is courteous under ordinary circumstances:
SCOLDING CENTRAL
“Hello! Central! how long are you going to keep me waiting? I told you I wanted ‘3040 Spring.’ Yes! I did say that! and if you would pay attention to your business you would know it! I never saw such a worthless set as they have at that Central Office. Got them, did you? It’s time! Hello, 3040, is that you? Well, why the devil didn’t you send that stuff around this morning? Going to, right away, are you? Well, it’s time you did. What ails you people, anyway? No!! Central!!! I’m not through, and I wish to heaven you’d let this line alone when I’m talking,” and so on, ad infinitum.
Is all this worth while, and is it necessary? And must women, who, as they call themselves ladies, do not give vent to expressed profanity, so far copy the manners of the so-called stronger sex that they scream like shrews over the telephone?
Calling one day on a woman whom I had met with pleasure half a dozen times, I was the unwilling listener to her conversation with her grocer. She began by rating Central for not asking “What number?” as soon as the receiver was lifted from the hook. Having warmed up to business on this unseen girl, she got still more heated with the grocer at the other end of the wire. She had ordered one kind of apples, and he had sent her another, and the slip of paper containing the list of her purchases had an item of a five-cent box of matches that she had not ordered. With regard to all of which she expostulated shrilly and with numerous exclamations that were as near as she dared come to masculine explosives,—such as “Great Heavens!” “Goodness gracious!” and so forth. After threatening to transfer her custom to another grocer, and refusing to accept the apology of the abject tradesman, she compromised by saying that she would give him another trial, and hung up the receiver, coming into the parlor and beginning a conversation once more in the even society voice I had invariably heard before from her.
COURTESY PAYS
That the ways of telephones and the persons who operate them are sometimes trying, no one can deny,—least of all, the writer of this chapter, who lives in a house with one of these maddening essentials to human comfort. But the loss of temper that manifests itself in the outward speech is not a requisite of the proper appreciation and use of the telephone. It is nothing less than a habit, and a pernicious one,—this way we have of talking into the transmitter. Let us remember that courtesy pays better than curses, and politeness better than profanity. If not, then let us have poorer service from Central and preserve our self-respect.
Never speak of calling a friend on the “phone.” The abbreviation is vulgar though one sometimes hears it on the lips of delightful people. But one should not make the mistake of justifying a solecism by saying “Mrs. So-and-so says it!” To study the graces and avoid the blunders of other people should be the aim of those who aspire to be well-bred.