skydog757
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- 465
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- Thumb Area, Michigan
My daughters don't know what a telephone pole is.
I'm sure that they have no concept of what a party line is either.
My daughters don't know what a telephone pole is.
My daughters don't know what a telephone pole is.
Do they not have phone service where you live?
Maybe underground lines? Where we are moving the telephone lines are underground. I know out west most of the lines are underground.
I'm fairly confident that many of what we called "telephone poles" back when I was a youngster were actually put in by the local electrical utility primarily to carry their power lines. These days, the much more commonly heard name for 'em (in these parts, anyway) is "utility pole," which is more in keeping with what they actually do. Power, phone (for those still using their old phone-company landline), cable, all on the same pole.
I'm guessing that "telephone pole" dates from a time when phone lines were perhaps more common than electrification, especially in rural areas. They were called telephone poles because that's what they were. And the name stuck, for at least a few decades, much in the way we still "dial" telephone numbers. (Wonder how long that will remain in common usage.)
In newer residential areas, sure, but there must be overhead lines *somewhere*...mustn't there?
It's still more common in small towns on the East Coast than in the West, but nearly all urban areas have underground lines.
I've never heard of, or used the term, utility poles. But logically, that's what they are. The first poles that went up in the UK were called: Telegraph Poles. The telegraph might be long defunct, but the name persists in the terminology of those poles. Whether they are used to carry electricity or phone lines.We have them coming through the access ways throughout my neighboorhood here in midIndiana. Hot line..telephone and cable. Most places are underground in this city and the newer additions..but many still have utility poles as well.
HD
[...]
I must make a mental note that next time I'm Stateside, to call the poles, utility poles.
They're certainly evident and very visible in our neighborhood. And everyone I know (that I can think of at the moment, anyway) still calls them "telephone" poles regardless of the other utilities supported by them.In newer residential areas, sure, but there must be overhead lines *somewhere*...mustn't there?
Ticker tape parade - how many people remember ticker tape or the parades up Broadway in lower Manhattan named for when the brokerage firms along the route would throw their used ticker tape out the window to celebrate the person being honored? I worked on Wall Street as a kid in the 1980s and it, to this day, is one of the neatest things I ever saw. It felt as if it was snowing paper - some ticket tape, but a lot of brokerage paper (quote sheets, computer paper, etc.) - a true blizzard of paper. If you ever get to lower Manhattan, all along the route (on lower Broadway) there are plaques in the sidewalks commemorating each parade. It is a neat trip back in time / through history.