THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 20, 1995 TAG: 9504200456
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
One thing making it harder to communicate is that telephones no longer ring. They murmur.
What in the name of Alexander Graham Bell - whose very name has a ring - does the telephone industry have to gain by producing phones that won't ring? They tinkle.
If you are three paces away, you can't hear the phone. It whispers.
Has society become so refined it no longer can endure the sound of a good, honest, forthright, Fourth of July ring from Mr. Bell's invention?
You would think that somebody in charge would recognize that in manufacturing mute phones they are running into a dead end.
Somewhere along the line, it is going to occur to people that there is no point in having a telephone they can't hear.
The other week, the phone at home lost its voice entirely. Its inner works malfunctioned.
Such is my innate confidence in modern technology that I assumed my hearing was failing.
I phoned a friend and asked him to call me immediately, then, hanging up, I put my ear on the phone like an Indian, ear to the ground, listening for buffalo.
Nothing! The buffalo weren't running. Mr. Bell's set was kaput. I reported its failure to a pleasant consumer comforter.
``And, please, ma'am, when they send the repair man - or woman, whichever - please have him or her bring along a phone that truly rings and not just trills.
``Bring one that may be heard not from just three feet but at least three rooms away. A phone whose ring is so penetrating it reaches the ears of the householder in the field across the way throwing a ball to a Labrador retriever.
``A ring so imperative it would start booted firemen sliding down poles and jumping on the backs of siren-screaming fire trucks.
``Bring one that can be heard from one Alp to another.
``Have the black phone set on a 2-foot-tall stem upon a base so heavy that the phone won't be falling over all the time and hurting itself. Have a 2-foot cord attached to the receiver, which you hold to the ear while you grasp the phone with the other hand and speak into a cup of a mouthpiece.''
The consumer comforter laughed. ``I don't think they make them like that anymore,'' she said.
The trouble began when the company marketed a phone, all colors of the rainbow instead of basic black, that could be cuddled in one hand against one's face. A princess phone, it was termed.
It caught on with consumers after actress Jean Harlow - or maybe Carole Lombard - appeared on film immersed in a tub of suds, phone in hand to her face.
Ere long, the old businesslike black phone was gone. To fit the intimacy of its frilly, pastel replacement, the bell's decibels were lowered to the tinkle of a tete-a-tete.
The repair man gave me a number through which to order a phone that would ring its head off.
And mine. by CNB