Getting the message – eventually

In the wide and wonderful world of aviation, there is a universal language roughly based on English and used to avoid confusion among pilots and to allow passengers to hurtle about the world without flying into mountains.

Regrettably, the notion of an international language has not yet occurred to telephonists who, despite remarkable technical advances, allow foreign callers to crash into metaphorical mountains or dive into drink out of sheer frustration.

Some time ago, I was involved in a global research project that meant having to do a great deal of overseas telephoning.

The first few weeks of trying to phone my contacts in France was like attempting to hold a conversation with your neighbour in Morse code by banging your head against the garden wall.

No one told me that the ringing tone in France sounds exactly like our engaged signal here in South Africa.

I eventually got the message and moved on to Italy.

I love the Italians and even learnt a few catchphrases in their lingo to break the ice.

Catchphrases that only made sense if I spoke clearly, succinctly and, most of all, slowly.

I dialled my first respondent in Milan, took a deep breath as the phone rang and, for some silly reason, expected someone to answer by saying “allo”, which I imagined was Italian for “hello”.

No way. The woman who answered did not even have the courtesy to say “allo”, let alone “buon giorno”, “ave” or any other modern or ancient Latin greeting.

What a rude lady, I thought. What am I talking about! I didn’t think anything like “what a rude lady” – I actually thought, “what an ill-mannered bitch”.

Because she simply picked up the phone and said, “pronto!”.

Pronto, I ask you. What, a sauce?

So I tried again, and again. Different numbers.

The entire Italy was full of ill-mannered bitches telling me to get a move on. “Stop messing about,” they implied. “Speak to us and speak fast, you Anglo-Saxon git,” I heard them thinking.

So I tried: “G’morningthisisChrisMorykcanIspeaktosignorLamberti…” – to which the receptionist replied, “Huh?”

It took me a month and a seriously dislocated dialling finger to discover that pronto is telephone-Italian for hello.

But we South Africans also have our little telephone idiosyncrasies, believe me.

When I began my career in journalism at the Pretoria News in the early 1960s, I had to telephone various government departments on an almost daily basis.

And every civil servant I ever telephoned, answered the phone in precisely the same way: “Yullie…”.

Sometimes the “u” in “yullie” was almost indistinguishable, particularly among those whose gold watches and pensions were only a couple of years away. They managed to compact “yullie” into a word of less than a quarter of a syllable.

For those who would like to give it a whirl, follow these instructions on how to properly pronounce “yullie” in the finest bureaucratic tradition of the old South Africa.

Hold the telephone instrument about 15 centimetres from your ear, at no stage allowing it to come any closer. This would give the false impression that you are willing to be of assistance to the caller.

Next, allow your lips to be so slightly parted that if someone held your nostrils closed, you would only just be able to breathe in sufficient air to stave off immediate brain damage.

Teeth should be firmly gritted.

Close your left nostril by screwing up your face as if you are shaving under your left jowl with a blunt razor and cold water (or, for women readers, as if you are trying to check in a mirror why your earring pin won’t go through that old hole in your earlobe anymore).

Now you’re ready. Fling your tongue up from where it is lying in complete wonder at this ridiculous little experiment we’re playing. Go on, fling it upward as if you were trying to let it escape out of that very right nostril that has been waiting in delightful anticipation for this moment ever since you started on that complicated procedure to get the left one closed.

The resulting sound should be: “yullie”.

It takes practice and it is entirely possible that you could end up saying things such as “yoghurt” or even jislaaik. But with persistence, “yullie” will eventually come out. Probably sometime in the early hours of the morning, after which time your family will want to have you certified.

Talking about strange telephone habits, don’t the Americans take the cake? Well, taking the cake is putting it mildly; sometimes they walk away with the whole darn bakery!

Have you noticed in the movies and on those television sitcoms that they never say goodbye?

They simply finish what they’re saying and put down the phone. Seems so incredibly rude.

A bit like me simply finishing this column by… . ▲

Chris Moerdyk