But the car still never starts until the last second.
“Keep him on the line so we can trace the call.”
That was exactly the point of my post, Slow Moving Vehicle. The mere fact that “darkies” was considered acceptable usage is astounding.
The title of a classic would never happen now: “Dial M for Murder”
Even though we still have phone numbers that are presented as words (the inescapable Stanley Steemer tv ads come to mind) it’s now always “call” and never “dial” for obvious reasons.
Also phone related: when someone is in an imperiled situation now, without some exposition or demonstration of why they don’t have a phone in their pocket or why it’s useless, there’ll always be the question “why didn’t they just call/text for help?”
Still see that all the time. Now usually involves cell towers and bouncing the signal, though.