FROM PENNSYLVANIA 6-5000
TO THE
   "KOSHER TSELULARER TELEFON"*

*The Yiddish word for cell phone is "tselularer telefon"
by
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe

Syosset, New York

"Hello?
"Thank you for calling Maxie's Restaurant, located at 7th Avenue at 48th Street, NYC. 
So go ahead and invite 'di gantse mishpokhe' to Maxie's.
Kinahora, Maxie's has the best sandwiches and foods. 
Only a fresser can finish a Maxie's Reuben Giant Knish. 
Our famous Baked Potato Knish--Topped with Your Choice of Pastrami or Corned Beef, Sauerkraut & Melted Imported Cheese.  $25.95. 
This call may be monitored for security purpose."

Yes, we all know that the "telefon" was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
Bell said, "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you." 
In l961, the touch-tone dial was invented.  Fast forward to 2007 and we learn that, according to a Pew study, 60%
of Generation Y uses text messaging, and more than 80% of teenagers have Internet access available to them.  10- to 17-year-olds will spend one-third of their lives on the Internet.

I was  brought up in the world of three R's:
the Royal, Remington Rand typewriter.  I remember as a child picking up the phone and an operator would say, "Number,
please."  I'd tell her, "get me MOhawk 9-4376, TRemont..., or LIncoln 1-5059, and she'd get it for me.  Today you hear, "This
is a recorded announcement...The number you have reached is not a working number..
The circuits are all busy..."

Do you recall MUrray Hill 5-9957?  This was one of the Ricardos' numbers on "I Love Lucy."  Then there was a Glenn Miller tune named "Pennsylvania 6-5000.  (That was the phone number of the Pennsylvania Hotel where the band played and lived during Miller's dates in New York.)

Liz Taylor made a movie called "Butterfleld 8." 

And today, Jim McCann's business prospers using 1-800-FLOWERS.  Yes, phone words are much easier to remember.

Today, one can expect to hear:

"Houston, we've got a problem."
"If your suit has a leak, press 1."
"If your oxygen is low, press 2."
"If your....."

(or)

"Hello?  Anheuser-Busch?"
"Waaaasssssuuuuuppppp!"

Alan King ("Help!  I'm A Prisoner In A Chinese Bakery," c 1964) wrote, "The other day I called my barber ("sherer") and forgot
to include his area code.  I ended up on the White House hot line.  Before I could say I was sorry ("Es tut mir leyd"), three squadrons from the Strategic Air Command penetrated five miles into Russia."

King continued, "Jeanette called her sister ("shvester") last month.  When we got the bill we found out that she had been talking for forty-five minutes to a Chinese hand laundry in Honolulu."

King admits that he's not too crazy about the telephone operators.  "I don't think they care about their work ("arbet.") "He
writes, "Operator, would you give me the number of Sam Shreiber, 24 East 3rd St.?"

"You can find that listed in your directory,"
she replied.

"Excuse me, lady.  You happen to be busy?
You have another job?  You climbing poles?
Stringing wires, maybe?  Would you mind looking the number up for me?  I happen to be illiterate."

"The number is 399-7971.  In the future, when dialing Information, please use your area code of 212 for Manhattan.  For
nationwide information, refer to 555-1212." (By this time King forgot Sam Shreiber's number.)

Ray Ramano ("Everything and a Kite") asks,"Is it normal?  I forgot my own phone number...This is why businesses use words
for phone numbers.  And even though it helps you remember, I hate it because it takes me twenty minutes to figure out how
to dial 1-800-CAT-FOOD."

Not many Americans know that Israel now has a "kosher" cell phone, and its developers are serious about looking beyond the religious enclaves of Israel.
MIRS Communications Ltd., pioneered the"kosher" mobile phone that debuted in 2005.

The "kosher" phone is stripped down to its original function:  making and receiving calls.  There's no text messaging, no Internet access, no video options, no"aparat" (camera), and no "muzik" downloading.  More than 10,000 offerings
are blocked.  A team of rabbinical overseers make sure the list is up to date.

The phones have been one of the most successful mergers of technology

William Swatos, the executive director of the Religious Research Association, says,
"Choosing a religious phone is one way a person who gives high salience to his or her religious identify can assert that
importance in a public way.  "Kosher" cell phones prevent the ultra-Orthodox community from experiencing a competitive
disadvantage in the "gesheft" (business) world.

Of course, let's not forget "der Jewish dzhentleman" (the Jewish gentleman) who lives in a South Florida development who
said, "I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is those cell phones that everyone has clipped on.  I can't afford one
so I'm wearing a 'garazh' (garage) door opener."
____________________

Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe says, "Progress?
Don't make me laugh!"

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___________________________________________
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe is the author of
two books:

"Yiddish for Dog & Cat Lovers" and
"Are Yentas, Kibitzers, & Tummlers Weapons of Mass Instruction?  Yiddish
Trivia."  To order a copy, go to her
website: MarjorieGottliebWolfe.com

NU, what are you waiting for?  Order the book!