Telephone Killed the Telegraph Star

Last Friday was a momentous occasion. The last telegram was sent by Western Union. Western Union practically became synonymous with telegrams. Telegrams (or telegraphs) were generally acknowledge (were they?) to have killed the Pony Express, a glamorous form of communication where men raced with horses over short distances delivering package from horse to horse to horse. It was said that the Pony Express lasted all of two years. I'm sure Wikipedia can enlighten me on this.

And so it does.

It lasted barely a year and a half, and allowed for mail to be transported across the country in ten days.

People were charged for punctuation (presumably extra) for telegrams, which is why you often see the word "stop" in telegrams. Given the convenience and directness of telephone calls, telegrams became increasing unpopular. Free email made it even less appealing than usual.

The legacy of short messages has not disappeared however. Cell phone users send short messages that often resemble telegrams. A friend of mine likes using "stop" rather than pecking for periods. It's probably due to intelligent prediction, rather than the extra cost of typing a period, that he does this, or that he's amused by this old-timey way to do things.

I'd say something amusing, like he'd prefer to use commas, rather than periods, but this is a tres geek comment concerning the differences between the way Americans like to write numbers, and say, the way the French do.

NPR, of course, reported this, and pointed out that most forms of communication, while threatened with extinction, have often survived. For example, most people predicted television would end radio and that it would also end movies. Neither has happened. Both are vibrant forms of communication.

If anything, we've found more ways to communicate. Instant messaging, cell phones, texting, even blogging, all serve a kind of communication. Whether we're actually doing a better job of interacting is debatable, but at the very least, we are opening opportunities to ourselves to meet others in a non face-to-face manner.

So, there you go. No more telegrams.

Did anyone notice?