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[00:00.01]Today on Ask a Teacher, we answer an email
[00:06.19]from Nathaniel in South Sudan. He asks:
[00:10.65]What is the difference
[00:12.95]between phone, call and ring?
[00:16.60]Hi, Nathaniel! That is a great question.
[00:21.36]We use these words when talking about telephone calls
[00:25.77]and other kinds of communication.
[00:28.90]All three words can be used as nouns and have a verb form.
[00:35.38]Today, I will be looking at the verb forms.
[00:39.52]The Scottish-born scientist and engineer Alexander Graham Bell
[00:46.13] is famous for his invention of the telephone.
[00:49.71]In 1876, the United States government
[00:54.54]approved a patent on Bell's telephone.
[00:58.21]The move gave him the exclusive right to the technology.
[01:03.15]So no one else could manufacture
[01:05.64]or sell his invention for a number of years.
[01:09.54]Since that time, people have shortened the noun "telephone"
[01:14.60]to "phone" and started to use it as a verb,
[01:18.97]meaning to call someone on a telephone.
[01:22.36]In Britain, it is common to hear people
[01:25.98]use the verb "ring" for this same purpose.
[01:29.16]But there is no rule that requires a speaker of American English
[01:34.36]to only use "phone" or a speaker of British English to only use "ring."
[01:41.19]Here are some examples of how we use "phone."
[01:45.60]Can I phone my wife?
[01:47.94]She would know the answer to this.
[01:51.17]She couldn't stop to phone for help.
[01:54.91]You may hear the verb "ring" when someone talks
[01:58.88]about the sound of alarm bells.
[02:01.37]I heard the doorbell ring.
[02:04.27]The sign said, 'Ring for Service.'
[02:07.96]In addition, a common two-word verb is "ring up."
[02:13.18]We may ask a store employee to "ring up" our purchase,
[02:17.53]that is, enter the prices on a machine.
[02:20.68]Google's Ngram Viewer is an online tool to learn about words.
[02:27.19]It looks at the words from Google books to show
[02:30.97]how often people use words over time and in what places.
[02:36.29]We used the Google Ngram Viewer to compare British
[02:41.88]and American usage of the three words.
[02:45.04]The first ngram looked at British English.
[02:48.69]It found that the word 'ring' was a little more popular than 'phone.'
[02:54.42]The second ngram looked at American English.
[02:58.63] It found that 'phone' is more popular than 'ring.'
[03:03.01]In both online tests, the word "call"
[03:06.64]was much more common than either 『phone' or 『ring'.
[03:10.31]English speakers often use "call" to talk about
[03:14.21]using the telephone to contact someone,
[03:17.60]such as in the following sentence:
[03:20.13]Call the police.
[03:22.45]Even more often, we use it in a general sense,
[03:27.37]as in "give a name to" or "label."
[03:31.55]They do not want us to call them pirates, but they are stealing.
[03:37.33]Do you call that bag of potato chips your dinner?
[03:41.77]We also use "call" in the sense of "ask" or "request."
[03:47.53]Let's call a meeting for tomorrow afternoon.
[03:51.64]So here is my advice on using phone, call and ring:
[03:57.93]You can use any one of them to refer to making a telephone call.
[04:03.57]"Call" is the most common in American English.
[04:07.82]As you learn more English,
[04:10.65]you will learn many expressions that include "call."
[04:14.25] I'll share one with you here:
[04:16.60]Let's call it a day.
[04:19.34]That is, our work is done; let's take a deep breath and relax.
[04:26.35]And that's Ask a Teacher!
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Words in This Story
alarm - n. a device that makes a loud sound as a warning or signal
bells – n. a hollow usually cup-shaped metal object that makes a ringing sound when it is hit
online – adj. connected to other computers
pirate - n. someone who attacks and steals from a ship at sea
chips – n. a thin, hard, and usually salty piece of food
refer – v. to direct someone's attention to
輕鬆玩轉語法！原來學習語法如此簡單~