I’ve been thinking for a long time that when we stop talking on a phone and bring down the handset to put it back on the phone cradle, then why we call it “hang up” and not “down” ?. To answer a phone we say “Pick up” simply because we mount the handset to higher position. So shouldn’t be the reverse action “down” not “up”?
And I discovered it all by myself,
Tell me if I’m right!
This is it because may be in the dim and distant past, desk phone was not in fashion and all were telephone booth like installed on the wall. So the position of handset hanger were higher than the position of your hand, then logically you should hang **up **the phone and not down!
Even if my underestimation is not correct, does it sound smart and pensive or no? lol
I have these sorts of thoughts all the time. I usually talk myself out of posting them.
You sound quite smart and pensive to me and I suspect that you are right about it being because early phones were hung on walls.
But the English language is pretty funny anyway. Gallagher did a skit a long time ago that is funny as heck about words. Doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re talking about, but it made me think of it.
The terms ‘pick up’ and ‘hang up’ apply very much more broadly than to telephony.
Taking hold of any smallish object into the hand constitutes ‘picking up’ - probably ‘up’ because that works for most common objects that are resting on top of anything else, including the ground.
Likewise, hanging up tends to be ‘up’ because hooks (i.e coat hoots) on which things are to be hung tend to be up off the ground.
cradles are the recess on on desk phones that the handset (mouth piece and ear piece unit) rests in when the phone is hung up. these were later designs.
a hook is what the phone ear piece hung on when the original wall or candle stick phone was hung up. the mouth piece was on the phone base. the ear piece had a hole on it which you hung on a hook (the term is still used that a phone is ‘on hook’ when hung up and ‘off hook’ when not hung up). later designs had a yoke to hang the ear piece on which was easier for the user.
Remember seeing those old telephones from the 1920’s in the black and white movies, especially the farmhouse or the really old house? The phone is a box on the wall, the person talks loudly into the cone on the box, and holds another cone to their ear? (No? OK, you ever see a black and white movie?) When you were done wit the call, you hang the earpiece up (“hang up”) to break the circuit.
Those phones were so old some did not have a dial, in the movies the caller would tap the hangup/earpiece cradle a dozen times so the light would flash at the switchboard, and the operator would see it flashing and come on the line to route your call.
The next generation was a desktop, a post about a foot high like a sawed off desklamp with the mouthpiece on top and the earpiece hung on the side; eventually with a dial on the base. When you “hang up” you hung the earpiece on the side.
You can buy “retro-looking” models that mimic these, but everybody wants the convenience of a full handset regardless so few are fixed microphone models.
So the terminology was frozen before the phones changed enough to make it sound weird. Just like “dial” and “ring” (when phones had a circular dial and a real bell). The only term still logical and applicable today is “this phone is dead”.
Both my parents and my wife’s parents still have wall mounted phones in the kitchen. They’re not THAT old - they’re push button phones, though my parent’s kitchen phone was rotary when I was growing up.
Heck they still sell wall mounted phones at Radio Shack. This is the style (but a 20+ year older model) of phone my wife’s parents have in the kitchen (the kind that can be either a desk or a wall phone), while this is more like what my parents have (except without the digital Caller ID panel - it’s just a phone receiver on the “hook” with the push buttons underneath it).
The appeal of a wall mounted kitchen phone is that it doesn’t take up counter space, nor does it require a power outlet for a remote base for a wireless phone. The back of the phone has an RJ-11 jack that goes right into the wall, affixing it in place at the same time as connecting its phone service.
it is not that wall mounted phones are old, it is that early style phones in homes were often wall phones (sturdy, less wiring involved, no wiring exposed to be damaged) and the separate earpiece had a hole in it which hung on a hook to hang it up.
wall phones now are more plentiful now than 3 or 4 decades ago. many of the wired phone sets are convertible; when used on a desk there is an inclined base to add to add to the phone, there is a small hook on the top of the hand piece cradle to allow the hand piece to stay in place when used as a wall phone. the design is actually to be a wall phone or used with an inclined base on a desktop. i’ve also seen reversible or removable hooks (small plastic catch) in the cradle for the phone to be used as a wall phone.
Yes, Reza, you are smart and pensive. lol
If I’ve got this right, the earliest telephones were mounted on the wall with a spur-looking thing sticking out of the side, which held a small trumpet-looking thing that you put up to your ear to hear. You spoke into a short cylinder that stuck out of the front. So when you hung up the phone, you were actually hanging up the phone.
The earliest ones had a crank. And later there was an operator who you called “Central.”
Actually, I thought the OP sounded hopelessly antiquated. Ending a call these days is done by flicking a button on a touch-screen. I think the proper term would be more akin to “flick off”.
In any case, Reza, the particles in phrasal verbs are not always representational. In fact, they could even be more often conceptual or just arbitrary. The particle up in phrasals often carries the connotation of completeness. Hence, for example, the difference between:
clean the room ===== clean up the room
eat the pizza ===== eat up the pizza
fill the glass ======= fill up the glass
fix a car ====== fix up a car
Only one of these could be seen as indicating the physical notion of up. It’s conceivable that hang up was not just a remnant of wall-mounted phone technology, but always a way to carry the connotation of a completely finished communication. We have something similar with out in other electronic communication:
the signal faded out
log out of your account
over and out!
