Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

LFS <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> had it:

In the early 1900s?  Nah, they were all living on the prairie in
those days.  There's nowhere convenient to put a door bell on a
horse.

Our doorbell has two different rings...one for the front door and one
for the back door.  I can never remember which is which.  Our dog,
however, is never confused.  She just goes to the thingy on the wall
that emits the sounds and barks at it.

[...]

Not for long, if things were the same as in Susanna Moodie's day:

"When we consider the different position in which servants are placed
in the old and new world, this conduct, ungrateful as it then appeared
to me, ought not to create the least surprise. In Britain, for
instance, they are too often dependent upon the caprice of their
employers for bread. Their wages are low; their moral condition still
lower. They are brought up in the most servile fear of the higher
classes, and they feel most keenly their hopeless degradation, for no
effort on their part can better their condition. They know that if
once they get a bad character, they must starve or steal; and to this
conviction we are indebted for a great deal of their seeming fidelity
and long and laborious service in our families, which we owe less to
any moral perception on their part of the superior kindness or
excellence of their employers, than to the mere feeling of assurance,
that as long as they do their work well, and are cheerful and
obedient, they will be punctually paid their wages, and well housed
and fed.

Happy it is for them and their masters when even this selfish bond of
union exists between them!

But in Canada the state of things in this respect is wholly reversed.
The serving class, comparatively speaking, is small, and admits of
little competition. Servants that understand the work of the country
are not easily procured, and such always can command the highest
wages. The possession of a good servant is such an addition to
comfort, that they are persons of no small consequence, for the dread
of starving no longer frightens them into servile obedience. They can
live without you, and they well know that you cannot do without them.
If you attempt to practise upon them that common vice of English
mistresses, to scold them for any slight omission or offence, you
rouse into active operation all their new-found spirit of freedom and
opposition. They turn upon you with a torrent of abuse; they demand
their wages, and declare their intention of quitting you instantly.
The more inconvenient the time for you, the more bitter become their
insulting remarks. They tell you, with a high hand, that "they are as
good as you; that they can get twenty better places by the morrow, and
that they don't care a snap for your anger." And away they bounce,
leaving you to finish a large wash, or a heavy job of ironing, in the
best way you can."

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/moodie/roughing/rough-11.html

http://tinyurl.com/y2pduy

The LFS entity posted thusly:

Two seconds ring, four seconds silence.

Doorbells, yes -- servants, no.  They're only for rich people here.

We don't confuse telephones with doorbells here.  Phones go RING!, and
doorbells go DING-DONG!

Well, I have to take that last statement back.  In the early 1960s, our
family had a special telephone bell that went DING-DONG!, but it was a
different sound than the doorbell.  It did confuse visitors, though.

The Mark Brader entity posted thusly:

Not only that, but it matters not a bit why the phone is active. If it
is off-hook because the handset is off the hook, it is also off-hook
if it is due to pressing a button, or auto-answering, etc.