Rotary-dial phones

[pne]

Prompted by seeing Amy playing with an old rotary-dial phone she got from her grandparents, and seeing that she didn't know what to do with the dial (she only picked up the receiver and talked). No wonder, since I doubt she's seen one before, and it's likely she won't be seeing (m)any in the future, either.

(Funny that the little icon for "phone" used in various places is nearly always a rotary-dial one, though!)

[Poll #1170050]

Comments

[volantwish]

When I was little, we had a red rotary phone in the basement. I always thought it was cool because the dial was on the bottom and you had to pick it up to use it. It was never our main phone though, and I never placed calls from the basement until after we'd already replaced the phone. (circa 1993?)

I use "dial" to describe the physical act of pushing the buttons and "call" to describe actually placing a call. (e.g., "I started dialing Bob's number, but then I remembered he was out of town. I didn't call him.")

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

Agreed. "Dialing a phone" is entering the numbers, regardless of whether it involves a 'dial' of any kind.