LINGUISTS OF THE TELEPHONE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

LINGUISTS OF THE TELEPHONE

Fluent Switchboard Girls At International Exchange

ACT AS INTERPRETERS FOR LABOURING SUBSCRIBERS Q WITCHBOARD girls at the Inter- ° national Telephone Exchange in London are up in arms at the implication that all they know of foreign languages is just enough to repeat numbers and a few well-worn phrases, such as “Number engaged’’ . .. and “Sorry you have been troubled.” A “Daily Telegraph” representative who visited the exchange, found that there are 200 of these girls. All of them can speak fluent and colloquial French and German. Many of them speak Spanish and Italian. Their accent is almost flawless. When the Prince of Wales visited ; the G.P.O. at the opening of the international exchange in May last year he spoke to one of the operators in Spanish (a language which the Prince is known to speak fluently) and congratulated her on her command of the tongue. There is a general impression that the switchboard girls are drawn from

national exchanges and taught just enough French and German to enable them to cope with telephone traffic. Actually the Post Office chooses the girls because of their knowledge of languages. Most of them were educated in the countries whose languages they speak. Often these girls have to act as interpreters when subscribers get into difficulties with each other's language. This is not part of their work, but when they hear an Oshkosh manufacturer struggling with his Harvard French to make a Parisian wholesaler understand his orders—at the rate • of several dollars a minutesheer good nature makes them come to the rescue. ~ An official at the Post Office said that the girls become so wrapped up in the language they are using that they unconsciously adopt the mannerisms of the country concerned—the high-pitched- voice and vivacious manner of the French and the lowpitched deliberation of the Germans.