Today in History - 911

Englishwithdain.com slash classes. El link está in la descripción del episodio. Hey, what's up? What's going on? Welcome to English with Dane, a podcast designed to improve your English. As always, I'm your host Dane, and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Englishwith Dane. Today's episode is about vocabulary, really. Vocabulary through the lens of something that happened on a day like today, but several years ago.

Today is the 16th of February, and there's something that I found interesting that happened on a day like today, so let's talk about it a little bit and pay close attention to the vocab. So I hope you have your vocabulary list ready because we'll be adding to it. Let's do this. You are listening to episode 157 of English with Date. Hit it. As I'm sure you're aware, 911 is the emergency number in the United States and Canada, I think.

Here in Spain and in the European Union, it's 112, so it's the American equivalent. A quick note: I'm using American as Estalonidense. I just wanted to clear that up because every time I say American, people write to me saying that America is more than the United States of America. I know. But for the sake of practicality, I'm going to say American. So back to 911. The headline reads. Right off the bat, we have an interesting verb there. To place a call.

The first 911 call is placed in the United States. Now, the verb to place can mean situar, right? Place sitio. So place situar, yes. But it can also mean to order or obtain a connection for or a phone call through an operator. So let's get back to it. First 911 call is placed in the United States.

February 16th, 1968 sees the first official 911 call placed in the United States, now taken for granted as first course of action in the event of an emergency by nearly all of the nation's 327 million people. To take something or someone for granted means to fail to properly appreciate someone or something, especially as a result of over-familiarity. Over-familiarity. So when you are so used to something good that you fail to properly appreciate it. We also take running water for granted, right?

There are lots of people in the world who don't have running water, drinkable water, and most of us don't even think about it ever. We take running water for granted, obviously food, electricity, shelter, and even our health are things we take for granted. So write that one down on your vocabulary list to take something or someone for granted. Dar por hecho in Spanish. Let's keep reading.

As telephones became common in US households, fire departments around the country recommended establishing a single, simple number to be dialed in the event of a fire or other emergency. A similar system had been implemented, had been implemented in the United Kingdom decades earlier, in 1936, when the code 999 was chosen, Folgida was chosen for emergency telegraph and phone communications.

The Federal Communications Commission decided to act in 1967, but the number itself came not from the government, but from ATT, the corporation that controlled nearly all lines in the US via its long-distance service and ownership of local Bell Telephone subsidiaries. At the time, ATT was considered a quote natural monopoly, a monopoly allowed to exist because high infrastructure costs and barriers to entry prevented challengers from emerging.

ATT suggested the number 911 because it was easy to remember and crucially had not yet been designated, no sabia designal todavia, had not yet been designated as an area code or other code which would make the transition easier. The first is the verb to dial, spelled D-I-A-L. To dial means to call a number using a keypad or touch screen. If you have someone on speed dial, you have them listed in your phone as a contact that you want to call really fast.

For example, if you hit three and you call your best friend, you have that person on speed dial. Nowadays it's not as useful because we can save contacts, of course, but I totally remember that being a thing. Something else that comes to mind, that gives me an end that comes to mind is the phrase to be dialed in. If you are dialed in, you are directing all of your effort and attention onto what you are trying to achieve. So you perform as well as you can.

It's like being locked in or really focused. You can say something like, That player was really dialed in during the second half. He played incredible. Dialed with two L's, by the way. The next phrase I wanted to talk about is barriers to entry. The sentence was, at the time, ATT was considered a natural monopoly, a monopoly allowed to exist because high infrastructure costs and barriers to entry prevented challengers from emerging. So barriers to entry is a term used a lot in economics, right?

Barriers to entry are costs or other obstacles that prevent new competitors from easily entering an industry or area of business. I'm sure you either knew this from before or figured it out. Subsidiary means filial, sucursal, etc. This one is more about a pronunciation thing.

I've noticed that people have a hard time with pronunciation when it comes to words in which the emphasis is placed on the third to last syllable, because it happens with words like comfortable, which is pronounced comfortable or interesting. So this is just more about you practicing this word and getting used to placing the emphasis where it needs to be. Subsidiaries. Try it. Say it slow at first and then speed it up. That's some of the best advice I can give you actually. Start slow.

I think next episode of English with Dane, episode 158-158, which will come out on Tuesday 21st, will be about pronunciation, tips, tricks, and just a bit of philosophy in general. So stay tuned for that. Now, I found some other stuff about 911 that I thought was cool too, some curiosidades, as we say in Spanish, some fun facts. Well, let's just say facts, don't know if fun is the best way to describe them. So here's five of them. First one, the pre-911 system was terrible.

Not that long ago, if you had an emergency, you had to know the number for the nearest police and or fire department. And the emergency number was often the same as the non-emergency number, meaning a busy signal was always a strong possibility. Needless to say, needless to say, this made both reporting an emergency and responding to an emergency very complicated. However, many 911 calls aren't emergencies. People call 911 for all kinds of things that aren't emergencies.

Overflowing toilets, dead batteries in a smoke detector, barking dogs, pero es que ladran barking dogs. Often the 911 operator will simply ask the caller to redirect their concerns to a non-emergency number or you know a plumber. But some municipalities will press charges, will press charges for misusing 911. For example, in 2015, an Ohio woman was charged with a misdemeanor for calling 911 to complain about bad Chinese food. Number four, any mobile phone can call 911.

Unless a mobile phone's battery is dead or the user is completely outside every wireless carrier service area, that phone can dial 911. No service plan needed, no fees, and in fact, here's number five. In fact, mobile phones are increasingly important to the 911 system. In many areas, over 80%, over 80% of 911 calls are made from wireless devices.

Because of this, wireless carriers and 911 call centers have worked to leverage the advantages, las ventajas, of mobile technologies to allow for better and swifter, so more quick responses to emergencies. In most areas, when you dial 911 on a mobile phone, the 911 operator not only sees your number, which is important for a callback in case of call drops, but also your location.

With this system all but fully in place, 911 systems are now focused on upgrading what's known as next generation 911, which is an IP-based system that allows 911 operators to receive and interface with voice, photos, videos, and text messages. I don't know. I thought that was interesting. I thought those those five points were interesting. When I was a kid, I actually I think called 911.

I picked up and just called 911, and when the operator answered, I panicked and I hung up, I hung up the phone and I I freaked out a little bit. I think I was like maybe eight years old. And I remember they called back, right? As they're supposed to, because in a lot of situations, people call when there's an emergency but can't talk. Maybe there's someone there or something's happening. And I remember calling, hearing the voice say, 911, what's your emergency?

And then I freaked out, and then I freaked out and I hung up. Then they called back, and my mom answered, and they said, Hey, somebody called 911 from this number. My mom was like, No, no, no, I don't think so. And then she looked at me and she knew instantly that I had called. Anyways, I'm sure a bunch of kids did that. Alright, that's it for this episode of English with Dane. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something.

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