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For telegrams, space was at a premium—economically speaking—and abbreviations were used as necessity. This motivation was revived for compressing information into the 160 character limit of a costly SMS before the advent of multi-message capabilities. Length constraints, and the initial handicap
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assistance. Some who favor predictive entry claim that telegraphing persists, despite it then needing more effort to write (and read); however, many others assert that predictive text generation is usually wrong, and hence find it more tedious and vexing to erase-and-correct predicted text than to
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age when telecommunication consisted only of short messages transmitted by hand over the telegraph wire. The telegraph companies charged for their service by the number of words in a message, with a maximum of 15 characters per word for a plain-language
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of having to enter each individual letter using multiple keypresses on a numeric pad, drove re-adoption of telegraphic style. Continued space limits and high per-message cost meant the practice persisted for some time after the introduction of built-in
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Note that in the Adams code, the code-words are all actual
English words; some telegraph companies charged more for coded messages, or had shorter word-size limits (10 char. max vs. 15 char.). Compare these to the following examples from the
88:. In the U.S. Foreign Service, cablese referred to condensed telegraphic messaging that made heavy use of abbreviations and avoided use of definite or indefinite articles, punctuation, and other words unnecessary for comprehension of the message.
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were developed, each serving to minimise the number of characters or words which needed to be transmitted in order to impart a message; the drivers for this economy were, for telegraph operators, the resource cost and limited
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Before the telegraph age military dispatches from overseas were made by letters transported by rapid sailing ships. Clarity and concision were often considered important in such correspondence.
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For German telegrams, the mean length is 11.5 words or 72.4 characters. At the end of the 19th century the average length of a German telegram was calculated as 14.2 words.
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is a clipped way of writing which abbreviates words and packs information into the smallest possible number of words or characters. It originated in the
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The average length of a telegram in the 1900s in the US was 11.93 words; more than half of the messages were 10 words or fewer.
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523:
Alred, Brusaw, and Oliu. Handbook of
Technical Writing, Seventh Edition. New York, New York: St. Martins Press, 2003., p.522
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According to another study, the mean length of the telegrams sent in the UK before 1950 was 14.6 words or 78.8 characters.
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107:) inquiring about the sales of his new book by sending the message "?" to his publisher, and receiving "!" in reply.
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The
Victorian internet : the remarkable story of the telegraph and the nineteenth century's on-line pioneers
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An apocryphal story about the briefest correspondence in history has a writer (variously identified as
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Email, SMS, MMS: The
Linguistic Creativity of Asynchronous Discourse in the New Media Age
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A telegram from 7 September 1896 to report positions of two comets was encoded for
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describes the style of press messages sent uncoded but in a highly condensed style over
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script, one of the few instances in which this script is used for entire sentences.
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turn off auto-text generation and directly enter their messages "telegraph style".
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In some ways, telegram style was the precursor to the abbreviated language used in
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Examples of telegraphic code-words and their equivalent expressions, taken from
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Through the history of telegraphy, very many dictionaries of telegraphese,
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of the system; and for the consumer, the cost of sending messages.
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It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be an advantage.
535:"Briefest Correspondence: Question Mark? Exclamation Mark!"
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It is not absolutely necessary, but well worth the outlay.
595:(5th ed.). London, UK: Eden Fisher & Co. p.
466:, abbreviated styles used in instant messaging and texting
202:(1901) all of which are English-like, but invented words:
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The ABC Universal
Commercial Electric Telegraphic Code
200:
A.B.C. Universal
Commercial Electric Telegraphic Code
563:(7th ed.). E.A. Adams & Co. 1894. p.
623:. The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 79.
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49:, following the first successful airplane flight.
357:In Japanese, telegrams are printed using the
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293:. Unsourced material may be challenged and
225:Will only do what is absolutely necessary.
655:. Bern: Peter Lang AG. pp. 187, 191.
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313:Learn how and when to remove this message
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169:Think you had better wait and sail ...
215:Do only what is absolutely necessary.
189:This is a matter of great importance.
27:Clipped language for writing telegrams
7:
291:adding citations to reliable sources
159:Think you had better wait until ...
620:The Telegraph in America, 1832–1920
415:Telegram of 21 June 1916 from
255:Comparison to modern text messaging
25:
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407:
385:
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179:Think well of party mentioned.
149:Think you had better not wait.
86:submarine communications cables
589:Clausen-Thue, William (1901).
533:O’Toole, Garson (2014-06-14).
480:How to Write Telegram Properly
1:
111:Telegraphic coded expressions
419:, Minister of Munitions, to
329:or short message standard (
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617:Hochfelder, David (2012).
47:Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
41:This telegram was sent by
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606:– via Google books.
649:Frehner, Carmen (2008).
477:Ross, Nelson E. (1928).
30:Not to be confused with
488:Standage, Tom (1998).
427:shell-filling factory.
423:, Chairman of Barnbow
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45:in December 1903 from
133:The Adams Cable Codex
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287:improve this section
333:) services such as
692:Non-fiction genres
539:Quote Investigator
417:David Lloyd George
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32:Telegraphic speech
682:Shorthand systems
560:Adams Cable Codex
337:, referred to as
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62:telegraphic style
16:(Redirected from
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464:SMS language
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285:Please help
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66:telegraphese
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18:Telegraphese
570:11 February
395:Ho Chi Minh
105:Oscar Wilde
101:Victor Hugo
92:Antecedents
687:Telegraphy
676:Categories
544:2014-06-15
512:References
458:Headlinese
393:President
303:July 2024
274:does not
165:Emotional
144:Emolument
126:bandwidth
70:telegraph
452:See also
359:katakana
241:Naloopen
211:Nalezing
75:telegram
401:, 1946.
379:Gallery
335:Twitter
295:removed
280:sources
243:
231:Nallary
185:Empanel
175:Empaled
155:Emotion
146:
121:ciphers
82:cablese
659:
627:
602:10 May
500:
425:Amatol
221:Nalime
117:codes
64:, or
657:ISBN
625:ISBN
604:2024
572:2019
498:ISBN
278:any
276:cite
597:464
397:to
331:SMS
289:by
119:or
103:or
678::
639:^
565:81
537:.
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310:(
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301:(
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