Talk:Telegram style

Were Telegrams Enveloped?
This question I think needs to be addressed as there is a rising generation of wikipedia readers who will not have known the format when this communication was in vogue. I looked in vain for some reference to answer this question after reading, in Bertrand Russell's article, that a telegram he sent to President Kennedy was "returned unopened" (a statement which had a 'citation needed' mark).Cloptonson (talk) 21:05, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I can only remember movies from the 1930s in which a Telegraph boy delivered an evelope, received a coin, and the addressee opened the envelope. Never an unenclosed sheet of paper. Jim.henderson (talk) 12:56, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Please also include an explanation of "straight wire or night service" -- while watching a number of old movies and TV shows, I came across many references to sending telegrams, and the transaction usually included at least part of the phrase "straight wire or night service." I assume that straight wires were given rush priority and that night service messages were set aside for transmission when it was less busy with delivery the next morning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.187.68 (talk) 22:52, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I was able to find descriptions of night service, or night letter service in a Western Union press release -- see the New York Times 2-18-1913 for details. Direct Wire is still a mystery, though I have seen it on the face of many telegraph messages available on various sites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.187.68 (talk) 23:35, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The following appears in "HOW TO WRITE TELEGRAMS PROPERLY", A Small Booklet by Nelson E. Ross, 1928 < http://www.telegraph-office.com/pages/telegram.html >

"If your business is really, urgent, the expedited full rate telegram always should be used. It bears the same relationship to other classes of telegraph traffic as the express train to the local train, and travels over the wires in preference to other traffic. Day Letters are subordinated only to full rate telegrams. The speed with which they are handled depends to a large extent upon the number of full rate telegrams having precedence. Every effort is made, however, to avoid unusual delay, and with the elaborate facilities of the telegraph companies, service on this class of traffic is much better than might be expected."

"Night Letters and Night Messages are accepted for delivery the following morning. These services were originated to make use of the wire and plant facilities of the telegraph companies during the night Periods when the load of traffic naturally is lightest. The expense of upkeep or overhead obviously does not cease with the setting of the sun. It is constant. What these night services do is to put on the wires largely by means of an attractive rate, correspondence which otherwise would go by mail, with the result that from several hours to several days are saved by use of the telegraph." Billsnpack (talk) 21:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

SMS & Twitter
"or the use of short message standard (SMS) services such as Twitter" Twitter has nothing to do with SMS. Tomalak Geret&#39;kal (talk) 13:26, 19 July 2016 (UTC)