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When you disconnect your phone, you hang up. Does this phrase apply to your cellphone?

Fujibei
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    Notice that your two questions are subtly different. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 27 '14 at 10:16
  • possible duplicate of http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/116610/why-the-up-in-hang-up-the-phone/116613#116613 – cobaltduck Feb 27 '14 at 17:06
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    Yes, just as you still dial a number. – Tim S. Feb 27 '14 at 18:24
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    And you still "roll up" a car window – Marty Neal Feb 27 '14 at 18:38
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    And when my wife asks if I taped a show, I remind her that there's no 'tape,' it's a recording on a hard drive. She quickly changes the topic to "you are very annoying." – JTP - Apologise to Monica Feb 28 '14 at 01:08
  • To be strictly accurate "hang up" was an outdated term for desk phones even before mobiles were invented. The original term came from the old "candlestick" phones where the microphone was in the stand and the speaker in a separate earpiece. The switch was under a small spring loaded bracket on which the earpiece was kept so the user literally "hung up" the earpiece to end the call. With later desk phones (you can still buy them) we "put down" the receiver to end the call but still say that we "hang up". I'm sure that there's a word for this sort of archaic terminology but I can't think of it. – BoldBen Apr 09 '21 at 19:16
  • @BoldBen - Sounds like you have a hangup with regard to archaic terminology. – Hot Licks Apr 09 '21 at 20:07
  • @HotLicks Ha ha. I don't have a problem with it at all, I'm all for using terminology that's familiar even if it's no longer strictly accurate. If we go too far down the "we don't actually do that any more" route the term will change to rapidly for people to keep up. – BoldBen Apr 10 '21 at 22:36
  • @BoldBen - Change to rapidly what? – Hot Licks Apr 10 '21 at 23:48
  • @HotLicks To rapidly embarass me with my sloppy typing. ****** tablets with touch screen keyboards. – BoldBen Apr 12 '21 at 22:08

9 Answers9

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Yes, one can.

Of course, it is applying a term that no longer has the direct meaning that it once did, but then teamsters no longer control a team of horses, core-dumps no longer have anything to do with ferrite cores, salaries are no longer paid in salt, and most people don't look at the stars when they consider something.

As such, it is one of a great many terms that relate to an historical artefact that is no longer relevant to the modern use.

For that matter, we still call them phones, when most that you can buy today are not actually phones, but rather multi-purpose pocket-sized computers that have a phone application among a great many others.

Jon Hanna
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    I would say that the term "telephone" is still relevant to today's usage. You still use them to hear "voice from afar". – tobyink Feb 27 '14 at 10:30
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    @tobyink. Yes, I'd say of the couple of hours of active use I make of my phone in an average day, I'd probably spend at least 30-40 seconds using it to communicate audibly with people far away, so it's not irrelevant. Of course other people have other use patterns, but for non-telephonic uses to outweigh telephonic is not rare. We would not call these things "telephones" if they'd arrived fully-formed like Athena from Zeus' forehead, just as we wouldn't "hang them up" if there wasn't a history of different use. – Jon Hanna Feb 27 '14 at 10:40
  • @PeterShor with the later candlestick telephones the earpiece could definitely be said to hang in the switchhook, and this was true of the handset in a very many later designs, including some still current. – Jon Hanna Feb 27 '14 at 13:00
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    Just to add my 2 cents, that phone application is usually harder to find than e-mail or internet browser :) – Danubian Sailor Feb 28 '14 at 09:22
  • @Łukasz웃Lツ +1, If I want to call someone, I go through my messaging app to find their name and click the call button. Simply because it's an interface I use much more than the "phone". – Cruncher Feb 28 '14 at 16:40
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Yes, you do. You can disconnect or hang up.

Even though we do not literally hang up the phone anymore, hang up has become idiomatic fro "disconnect the telephone connection".

This is not something new from the age of the mobile phone, even with a lot of "home phones" you have not been "hanging up" in the literal sense for a very long time.

On old telephones, you had to hang the "handset", rather the speaker part, back on a hook on the telephone. That hook would act as a switch to disconnect.

Compare it to to dial a number: we have not been dialling numbers in the literal sense for ages, the expression stems from the days when telephones had a dial that you would have to turn to form the number.

When we started effectively typing the number, we still called it dialling.

oerkelens
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    AHD supports this usage: hang up ... 2. a. To replace (a telephone receiver) on its base or cradle. b. To end a telephone conversation. However, you hang up when you've been using a cellphone, not 'hang up your cellphone'. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 27 '14 at 10:07
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Although I'd avoid hanging up a mobile phone, and would rather ring off, the usage is widespread. Most mobile phones have pictograms showing telephone handsets on buttons that you press to start or end a call, justifying, in some way, the metaphorical shift. There's a reference to hanging up in the contxt of mobile telephone calls in Debrett here.

I also prefer to use 'ring' rather than dial, or for example, if my wife's got a friend's number on her mobile that I haven't got on mine, I'd probably say, 'Woukd you connect me to ...' Or 'would you ring ...'.

Leon Conrad
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In Britain I don't remember ever using 'hang-up'as regards the phone. Though I do recall one or two of the old phones still lurking around in the 1950s where you did actually hang-up the receiver.

The term we always used was 'ring-off', though Americans did continue to 'hang-up' even after the arrival of the compact phone with the receiver rest.

So I simply continue to 'ring-off' with my mobile, though I notice that some younger people say 'end the call'.

WS2
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  • "ring off" sounds to me totally ancient, reminiscent of someone turning the handle on an old wall phone with Bakelite mouthpiece. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wlI4NxZ0U5M/Tue1wPKPy5I/AAAAAAAAEXo/yAZ1WL3Cz0g/s1600/Oak+Wall+Phone.jpg – mplungjan Feb 27 '14 at 09:39
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    @mplungjan No, that type of phone is the one which gave us the term 'hang-up', because that is what you did, you literally hung up the receiver on the hook. But although I can remember one or two of those still in use, they had mostly disappeared by the end of WW2 when I arrived on the scene. You then had the bakelite phone with the receiver rest, which didn't involve any hanging up but merely the replacement of the receiver across the top of the phone. And it was then that we 'rang-off'. – WS2 Feb 27 '14 at 10:06
  • "Ring off" sounds to mplungian totally ancient, reminiscent of someone turning the handle on an old wall phone with Bakelite mouthpiece. It doesn't to me. We are divided by a common language. He perhaps uses a cell (which Sherlock would pick up on, no doubt). – Edwin Ashworth Feb 27 '14 at 10:08
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    I distinctly remember seeing people "ring off" by turning the handle (waking up the switch board operator?) BEFORE hanging up. We are not divided. My spell checkers are all on UK spelling and I ordered the British version of Harry Potter from Amazon.co.uk when I read it. I am however not a native speaker and my English may be cross polluted for any number of reasons. – mplungjan Feb 27 '14 at 10:23
  • @WS2: they had not disappeared by the end of WW2. I was born in 1980, and certainly still remember phones where physically hanging the phone on the hook disconnected the call. They were quite common in my childhood. – tobyink Feb 27 '14 at 10:33
  • @ mplungjan If I say we're divided, ... :-) – Edwin Ashworth Feb 27 '14 at 11:38
  • @tobyink You can buy retro phones looking (near-)identical. Whether or not the switching mechanism is the same, I don't know. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 27 '14 at 11:40
  • @tobyink As Edwin says they were retro fashion. But I remember as a boy, about 1951, my best friend was the son of the village policeman, and at the Police House, where he lived, they still had the hanging-up type of phone. But I probably only ever saw about one other of that type in use. – WS2 Feb 27 '14 at 12:22
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    These were not retro chic. Ours were beige, which I think rules out any kind of fashion statement. It should perhaps be noted that I grew up in Sydney. However, I don't think Australia has lagged especially behind the rest of the world in regards to telephony. – tobyink Feb 27 '14 at 12:34
  • @EdwinAshworth those old rotary dial phones still work; my phone at home is from 1973 and this model, and still works. (I’ve got an ADSL+POTS line, so it works directly, even with most multiplex dial numbers; were I using ADSL+ISDN as common in Germany, I’d have to use an “a/b changer” (mostly used with Telefax devices), but it would work equally well.) I also have a telefax from 1983… – mirabilos Feb 27 '14 at 13:34
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    @tobyink I've really lost track of the point you are making here. The vast majority of post-war phones were not of the 'hanging-ear-piece' type, I think you will agree. There may have been some people who looked back with nostalgia and bought the type you describe. So what is that telling us? – WS2 Feb 27 '14 at 13:34
  • I'm not talking about these -- I'm talking about these, which also have a hook that cuts off the call. Until the late 1980s they (and their corresponding non-wall-mounted friends) were probably the most common variety of telephone. – tobyink Feb 27 '14 at 13:50
  • @tobyink Yes I remember those. But, forgive me, what again is your point? – WS2 Feb 27 '14 at 13:54
  • Curiously, (as a Brit) I don't ever recall anyone using the term 'ring off'. I, and everyone I know, would use the term 'hang up', so the assertion that 'ring off' is British usage is a little overstated. – Cheeseminer Mar 01 '14 at 13:05
  • @Cheeseminer How old are you? – WS2 Mar 01 '14 at 19:56
  • Between the second and third cycles of 'over 21' :-) So my first experience of telephony was the bakelite, rotary-dial, fixed wire, sitting-at-the-bottom-of-the-stairs (because the phone is in the hallway) experience. – Cheeseminer Mar 02 '14 at 12:43
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Yes, it does. "Disconnect the call" is also possible (although more technical).

d'alar'cop
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"ring off" is far older usage than "hang up" because it refers to (as someone said), turning the dynamo crank to inform the human operator to disconnect your circuit. Just plain "hanging up" was more advanced, after automatic switching arrived that could disconnect the circuit when you hung the receiver on the hook. So, the British are much farther behind in their word usage than the US. British still say "toilet", which was a euphemism - the original word means "grooming", as in "eau d'toilet" (literally: toilet water, as all 7 year-olds know.) But in the US we have had a string of successive euphemisms for the toilet, races of people, being handicapped (originally meant a disadvantage placed on a better player in a game) and so on. Maybe there is something to be said for not changing, until it no longer makes sense. New technology could bring new words instead of straining the old ones to incredulity and creating questions like this one.

  • Where does 'the loo' enter into this rationale? If it's older I'd prefer to use it. Ever since I went to visit a Tudor House a month ago with people from the Elizabethan age greeting us, I have called it the House of Easement! Old forms are usually proven to be best in the end. – WS2 Mar 01 '14 at 20:00
  • "Ring off" in the UK is simply "hang up" in the US. Nothing to do with the US term being more advanced, ho' any rationale will do. But since American terms have spiked since the 90s in the UK, due to their being bombarded by US TV & cinema (like the rest of the world), one hears British English & the different accents disappearing before one's very eyes. And many of us Americans love it so. The American Invasion goes on & no one seems to care. – Marya Berry Jul 30 '20 at 08:05
  • @WS2 The standard explanation is that, when sewers were open drains running down the centre of streets, (Tudor London was a slum by modern standards) people would empty chamber pots from the overhanging upper stories of half-timbered houses directly into the street. This would be accompanied by a warning cry of "garde l'eau" or "watch out for the water". The phrase "l'eau" from this call is supposed to be the origin of "loo". I've never found this totally convincing, particularly given that flushing toilets are about the same age, But the association with human waste and water is convincing. – BoldBen Apr 10 '21 at 04:13
  • I don't get the bit about the dynamo crank. What dynamo? What crank? The first telephones I used in the late 1940s and 50s used to make a single "ding" when you replaced the receiver on the rest. I always supposed that was where "ring off" came from. It was the older pre-war phones where the receiver got "hung up". – WS2 Apr 10 '21 at 06:46
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From a cellphone industry insider's perspective, the terms used in the ETSI GSM specifications to describe the states relating to an audio connection are "on hook" and "off hook". This simply echoes the concept of hanging but from the equipment's viewpoint.

For an example reference (from a quick search for a public example) see this old ETSI specification, see section 5.2.5 etc.

"5.2.5.1 Lift the hand-set "Off Hook" - Dial tone is presented."

Cheeseminer
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Hang up, because "Did you hang up on me?," expressed with righteous indignation, is still a basic verbal weapon of emotionally overwrought adolescence.

Whatever you say, do not use "slammed the receiver down" when referring to ending a call in anger. With a cell phone it could be a very expensive gesture!

Joan Pederson
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Native speakers in the U.S. rarely use "disconnect" when ending a call. Using "hang up" is far more common.

Yes, one could say, "I'm going to disconnect our call, now.", but I've rarely heard it said in the U.S. The statement implies that one has a degree of authority over deciding when a call should terminate. It might be made by a customer service representative or someone expressing dissatisfaction with the content of the call.

In the context of cellular phones, "disconnect" refers one of the following:

1. discontinuing service with a provider (Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, etc.) => "I informed Verizon to disconnect (terminate) my cell phone service because I'm switching to a different carrier."

2. discontinuing use of the physical cell phone itself => "I don't use that cell phone anymore. It became disconnected (unusable for making calls) when I put its SIM card into my new cell phone."

3. unexpected termination of a call due to poor signal reception or carrier network issues => "Jane and I were chatting on the phone when the call suddenly disconnected. I must have been in a location that has poor cellular reception."

4. intentional termination of a call by an outside party that has authority to terminate a call (uncommon and unlikely) => "We both are in locations that have a strong cellular signal. Our previous call must have been disconnected by the service provider."

Mark
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