Roland Perry writes:

In message , at 11:31:39 on Sun, 17
Jul 2005, Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 remarked:
We here is the US got
911 as a single emergency number in the late 60's, early 70's.

I recall staying in hotels in the USA in the 80's where there was a
list of numbers on the back of the door for the local Fire, Police
etc. These were the local phone numbers, not 911.

Perhaps, in those places where there is an integrated emergency
service, they have always used the number 911. But not everywhere has
had that integrated service for very long.
--

There are some places that don't have 911 service even yet. The dates
I was using were for the beginning of the service, since the original
discussion was about stating the emergency number as "nine eleven" and
that quickly proved to be a bad idea. Many of the public displays of
the number show it as 9-1-1, btw.

And it's not necessary to have integrated services, to have a 911
service. Here in Oakland, the police department administers the
service, but the dispatchers also directly handle EMS and fire calls.

OTOH, people are beginning to use the specific agency numbers again,
since the mobile telephone system isn't great at properly routing 911
calls. For instance, if you're anywhere near a state highway in
California, a 911 call will probably go to the state highway patrol
dispatcher, who then has to figure out what to do with it. So if you
want the local police or fire service, even if you're next to a
freeway, it's useful to know the direct number.

I do note that it took the US 30 years to follow the UK on a single
emergency number system.

The model has also taken hold to the point that the local
transportation information number here is 511. This is very new. And
brings the discussion back to close to topic for u.t.l.

73, doug

In message , at 19:08:10 on Sun, 17
Jul 2005, Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 remarked:
And it's not necessary to have integrated services, to have a 911
service. Here in Oakland, the police department administers the
service, but the dispatchers also directly handle EMS and fire calls.

For clarity, the integrated service I was referring to is the integrated
handling of 911, not a merging of the Police/EMS/Fire departments.
--
Roland Perry

On 16 Jul 2005 15:01:01 -0700, Troy Tempest wrote:

Will Tim Henman take up commentary?

Probably, but only as far as the semi-final matches.
--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9632829.html
(33 014 Pausing at Fareham before continuing eastwards - May 1985)

On Mon, 17 Jul 2005, Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 wrote:

Roland Perry writes:

We here is the US got 911 as a single emergency number in the late
60's, early 70's.

The model has also taken hold to the point that the local transportation
information number here is 511. This is very new. And brings the
discussion back to close to topic for u.t.l.

And to steer it away again, that's just one of the x11 numbers specified
in the North American Numbering Plan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_A...Numbering_Plan

I suspect most of them are very rare.

tom

--
REMOVE AND DESTROY

Tom Anderson writes:

On Mon, 17 Jul 2005, Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 wrote:

Roland Perry writes:

We here is the US got 911 as a single emergency number in the late
60's, early 70's.

The model has also taken hold to the point that the local
transportation information number here is 511. This is very new.
And brings the discussion back to close to topic for u.t.l.

And to steer it away again, that's just one of the x11 numbers
specified in the North American Numbering Plan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_A...Numbering_Plan

I suspect most of them are very rare.


411, 611, and 811 are very common (no surprise there). And I suspect
711 is. There seem to be a number of 511 systems out there. I
suspect most them are statewide, too. The Bay Area MTC owns the
511.org domain, though. I wish they had as useful as site as TfL,
though.

73, doug

David wrote in message
...

Is every bomb incident now going to be referred to by its date?
Referring to New Yorks as 9/11 (why are'nt we calling it 11/9) is bad
enough. Now we have 7/7. I'm still waiting to hear references to
Madrid's 11/3 or Bali's 12/10!
I hope one does not happen on 2nd February, 2/2 will sound rediculous



its becoming too much of a trend

On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 20:57:23 +0000 (UTC), "dave F"
wrote:

I hope one does not happen on 2nd February, 2/2 will sound rediculous

its becoming too much of a trend

Getting into linguistic pedantry here, I think "9/11" is referred to
as such because there's not another short way to refer to it. "The
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon" is a bit
long-winded.

By comparison, "the London bombings" is quite short and sufficiently
descriptive of such a conventional attack, and so I don't think we'll
get as many references to "7/7" except possibly from the other side of
the Atlantic.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

David Jul 15, 5:06 pm show options
Newsgroups: uk.transport.london
From: (David) -
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 21:06:13 +0000 (UTC)
Local: Fri,Jul 15 2005 5:06 pm
Subject: 9/11 - 7/7

Is every bomb incident now going to be referred to by its date?
Referring to New Yorks as 9/11 (why are'nt we calling it 11/9) is bad
enough. Now we have 7/7. I'm still waiting to hear references to
Madrid's 11/3 or Bali's 12/10!
I hope one does not happen on 2nd February, 2/2 will sound rediculous

Dave
The Reason its 9/11 is because the US emergency police fir &ambulance
is 911.

I'm alife long NYer but i was out of town on 9/11 but was at heathrow
when the london bombs went off.

Neil Williams wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 20:57:23 +0000 (UTC), "dave F"
wrote:

I hope one does not happen on 2nd February, 2/2 will sound
rediculous

its becoming too much of a trend

Getting into linguistic pedantry here, I think "9/11" is referred to
as such because there's not another short way to refer to it. "The
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon" is a bit
long-winded.

By comparison, "the London bombings" is quite short and sufficiently
descriptive of such a conventional attack,

e.g. 14 Jun 1917, 29 Dec 1940, 20 Jul 1982, 24 Apr 1993, and many more.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Martin Underwood:
It was my first thought when I heard people referring to the
Twin Towers attacks as "9/11".

Stephen Farrow:
Though, to be fair, the emergency services number is always read as
"nine-one-one", never as "nine-eleven".

Colin Rosenstiel:
So my US citizen brother confirms today. So why the 9/11 epithet for the
bombing of the twin towers? ...

"9/11" properly refers to the entire attack, not just that part of it:
the hijacking of four planes, the destruction of the World Trade Center,
the plane crashed into the Pentagon, and the plan to similarly attack
another Washington site (probably the Capitol), which was thwarted.

People, especially politicians, needed a way to refer inclusively to
all parts of the attack. The attack on the WTC was clearly the most
desctructive part, but anyone in public life outside of New York who
referred only to that, the way Martin and Colin did above, would risk
being seen as slighting the other victims. (Suppose people came to
refer to this month's attacks as "the Tube bombs" -- wouldn't that
make you cringe if someone close to you was on that #30 bus?)

But it was hard to find a terse expression that was also as inclusive
as desired. What the politicians quickly settled on was the phrase
"the events of September 11"; but that's still rather unwieldy. Since
the resemblance of the date 9/11 to the phone number 911 had already
been widely noted, and yet their pronunciation was different, the
shortening to "9/11" was a very natural thing.
--
Mark Brader | "Follow my posts and choose the opposite
| of what I use. That generally works here."
Toronto | --Tony Cooper

My text in this article is in the public domain.