Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

That actually happens quite frequently, if 999 is dialed and the operator
hears either suspicious noises, a small child crying, or an incoherent
adult. From personal experience, I know that the operator gives to the
emergency service(s), in real time, the name and address of the person to
whom the calling phone is registered, for landlines. I don't know how they
deal with mobiles, but imagine that GPS is used if the phone is not cut
off.

Sorry. What I had in mind, but did not make explicit, were the competing
recording formats - DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD+R.
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#4.3

That's regional coding, as you cited. The formats: DVD-R, DVD+R, (and
associated RWs) and DVD-RAM are competing and incompatible formats. It was
only in the last year, I believe, that DVD writers were produced that could
write all three formats.
m.

True. But the number of people travelling internationally was much smaller
than today.

The is a webpage giving the history of the 999 service in the UK
http://www.fire.org.uk/advice/999history.htm
A couple of extracts:
<quote>
HISTORY OF THE 999 SYSTEM AND FIRE BRIGADES  
 
Before automatic exchanges the public telephone system was based on large
numbers of local manually operated telephone exchanges, many of which were
found in local tradesmen's premises manned on a "sleeping watch" basis by
the occupier.

All calls, local or long distance, were connected manually by the exchange
operators, since automatic dialling was then in its infancy. At that time
Fire Brigades were also completely decentralised (organised in the form of
local units) and created few communication problems. In cases of emergency
subscribers called the local exchange , where upon the operator connected
them to a local point for the receipt of the emergency calls. There was
little if any need for the co-ordination of communications planning over a
wide area.
....
WHY 999

The 999 system came about via the Metropolitan Police in London. In 1829
they found that their Police Stations were being overrun either by visitors
to the station alerting them to emergency situations or trying to phone them
in the growing trend of using the new invention, the telephone. Not every
one could remember or knew the telephone number of the local Police Station.
In November of 1927 the general public in London were advised " if you have
an emergency dial 0". When the operators answers ask for the service you
require. The Metropolitan Police maintained this service till 1934 then they
introduced their Information Room with the famous number of Whitehall 1212.
Where all emergency calls ended up. Emergency calls via telephone kept
increasing and telephone operators were unable to identify emergency calls
from other operator service calls.

As is normal a disaster of some description was required to prompt
government action. In November of 1935 a fire occurred in London in which
five people died, in the inquiry which followed it became apparent that a
system was required that alerted telephone operators to emergency calls. A
parliamentary Committee called the Belgrave Committee examined the problems
and set up various experiments in London. A great deal of discussion took
place between the Home Office, the Police and Post Office. It was decided
not to use 111 as this number can be dialled by phones which are faulty. 12
was not a good idea as at that time any one wanting a number on the 12
exchange would be barred because of the emergency calls. The same could be
said for 222, this would have closed a big exchange in London and that could
not happen.

999 was used because the numbers could be remembered easily, that they were
all at the same end of the dial. It was relatively simple to convert coin
boxes to accept 999 calls with out charge. The 999 system open in London in
July 1937, it was 1938 before it reached Glasgow. It was the first service
of its type in the world.
...
</quote>

I suppose we should ask why other countries did not follow this example and
use 999?

Wikipaedia has on article on emergency phone numbers. It lists the numbers
by region and country - what a mess! (It is a very incomplete list.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_telephone_number

I can imagine her frustration.
Numerically zero is a low number, but on a rotary dial it has the value ten.

Well, both spellings are correct after all. One way to tackle this is to
use the Auto Correct feature -- you instruct it to output "realize" when
you input "realise" -- which will only work for any text you write, but
not for texts that others write of course.

Another thing would be to change every occurrence of "realise" to
"realize" (or vice versa -- plus every other custom change you might
want to make) and put it in a macro which you run before you run
spell-check. I haven't tried this in Word, but I know it works in
WordPerfect.

It is possible to block words in the main dictionary by creating an "exclude
dictionary".

This capability exists in both versions to which I have immediate access:
Word 97 and Word 2002

Using Word Help search for "dictionaries", then from the list of topics
select "Specify a preferred spelling for a word".

From Word 2002 Help
<quote>
Specify a preferred spelling for a word

To specify a preferred spelling for a word, you add variations of the word's
spelling to the exclude dictionary (exclude dictionary: A dictionary with
words that the main dictionary recognizes as being spelled correctly, but
that you want to verify during a spelling check. For example, if you prefer
"theatre" to "theater," add "theater" to the exclude dictionary.).

Click New Blank Document  on the Standard toolbar.
Type the words you want to include in the exclude dictionary. Press ENTER
after each word.
On the File menu, click Save As.
Locate the folder to save the exclude dictionary in. This should be the same
location as the main dictionary. The location may vary depending on your
version of Microsoft Windows:
Microsoft Windows 2000 or later

Save in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Proof folder.

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0

Save in the C:\Windows_folder\Profiles\User_name\Application
Data\Microsoft\Proof folder.

Microsoft Windows 98

Save in either the C:\Windows_folder\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof folder
or the C:\Windows_folder\Profiles\User_name\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof
folder.

In the Save as type box, click Plain Text.
In the File name box, type a name for the exclude dictionary.
Make sure to give the exclude dictionary the same name as the main language
dictionary it's associated with, except use the file name extension .exc.
For example, the English (United States) dictionary is called Mssp3en.lex,
so name the associated exclude dictionary Mssp3en.exc.

Also make sure that the file extension is correct, for example, that .txt
isn't appended to the file name extension.  

Click Save.
In the File Conversion dialog box that appears, select the options you want,
and then click OK.  
For Help on an option, click the question mark , and then click the option.

On the File menu, click Close.
To activate the exclude dictionary, you need to restart Microsoft Word.
</quote>