# Telegram Dictaction Protocol

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telegram-dictaction-protocol/146880>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 6, 2003, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telegram-dictaction-protocol/146880 "2003-01-06T04:39:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telegram-dictaction-protocol/146880/1 "2003-01-06T04:39:25Z")

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I love watching old movies… especially those that were made in the 1930’s and 40’s… and I have noticed that when anyone in the movie needed to dictate a telegram to someone (almost always at Western Union) they used the word “stop” just as you might expect someone nowadays to use the word “period”.

It seemed they would always go something like…

Dear Robert (STOP) Your brother Tom is dead (STOP) The will is being read next thursday at 10 AM (STOP) I assume you will be able to be there (STOP) Regards, your brother James (STOP)

Even if they showed a copy of actual telegram it would also have the word stop in it. I’ve seen real telegrams and they seemed to have this too.

Now when you’re talking on the phone I suppose it might make sense to use the word Stop instead of Period, since the connection might not be great and there’s a chance for confusion, but if I’m standing in front of the guy why would I use this arcane protocol?

There has to be more to this than meets the eye… Does anyone know why it was done this way or is this just an artifact of the movies?

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**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telegram-dictaction-protocol/146880/2 "2003-01-06T04:58:07Z")

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[From this site:](http://www.metronet.com/~nmcewen/telegram.html#Punctuation)

> [@](#):
>
> If you do not intend to stipulate that marks of punctuation be transmitted, write your message without punctuation and read it carefully to make sure that it is not ambiguous. If it seems impossible to convey your meaning clearly without the use of punctuation, use may be made of the celebrated word “stop,” which is known the world over as the official telegraphic or cable word for “period.”
> 
> This word “stop” may have perplexed you the first time you encountered it in a message. Use of this word in telegraphic communications was greatly increased during the World War, when the Government employed it widely as a precaution against having messages garbled or misunderstood, as a result of the misplacement or emission of the tiny dot or period.