On his blog, my friend Skip posted a joke which made reference to STDs. In the context of the joke, that meant sexually transmitted diseases but I queried if it was subscriber trunk dialling. I'm not sure if Skip realised that really is (or was) a well-known abbreviation over here. History lesson coming up.
Back in the so-called good old days one could make a telephone call to a local exchange by dialling the first three letters of the exchange name followed by the number. For example, WHItehall 1212 was the number for Scotland Yard. A call to anything other than a local exchange was known as a trunk call. These had to be placed through the operator at the local telephone exchange. Then came a breakthrough. Using what was known as subscriber trunk dialling a person in, say, Southampton could dial a number in, say, Newcastle direct - without going through the operator.
I wonder if Pennsylvania 6-5000 was ever a real phone number?
I don't remember it having a name, but that's pretty much how our phone system worked too.
ReplyDeleteKnowing how we think over hear, we can't be bothered with using official terminology so we called it "Dialing 0."