"If you are to use Alexander Graham Bell’s……" — Mark Forsyth
"If you are to use Alexander Graham Bell’s product, which is to say the blower, you should, in all courtesy, use it as he would have wished; and Dr Bell insisted that all phone calls should begin with the words ‘Ahoy, ahoy’. Nobody knows why he insisted this – he had no connection to the navy – but insist he did and started every phone call that way. Nobody else did, and it was at the suggestion of his great rival Edison that people took to saying ‘Hello’. This seems unfair."
—
Mark Forsyth
★
★
★
★
★
0.0 avg (0 ratings)
10 Quotes by Mark Forsyth
Mark Forsyth has 10 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
-
Reality changes words far more than words can ever change reality.
-
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it was the sausage-maker who disposed of the body.
-
Poetry is much more important than the truth, and, if you don't believe that, try using the two methods to…
-
The problem with the alphabet is that it bears no relation to anything at all, and when words are arranged…
-
So familiar are eggs to us, however, that in the eighteenth century they were referred to as cackling farts, on…
-
But Shakespeare never drank coffee. Nor did Julius Caesar, or Socrates. Alexander the Great conquered half the world without even…
-
Freud said that everything was secretly sexual. But etymologists know that sex is secretly food.
-
Anyone who has ever taken out a mortgage will be unsurprised to learn that it is, literally, a /death pledge/.
-
A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is…
See all 10 quotes by Mark Forsyth »
More Ahoy Quotes
This quote is filed under Ahoy Quotes,
one of 4 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
See all 4 Ahoy Quotes »
