[Ads-l] mobile for phone

[Jonathan Lighter]

I had a similar experience about six months ago.

When filling out forms, "mobile" is now the default word for "phone."

JL

On Sat, Dec 23, 2017 at 7:27 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> That would be confusing in the U.K., where “mobile” = ‘cell phone’.
>
> > On Dec 23, 2017, at 8:53 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > I'm sure this has been discussed on the list, but last night I had a
> > longish chat with a Comcast tech support person, a young woman, about a
> > technical problem.  At the end of the chat she asked for my preferred
> > mobile number.  I told her I had a land line and gave her the number of
> > that.  She continued to refer to my land line as a mobile, and I realized
> > that the word "mobile" had replaced the word "phone" to refer to the
> device
> > you talk through.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org