Tuesday, January 6, 2015

tannoy

If I wasn't too lazy to label my blog posts, I would probably have a little category called something like, "We Speak the Same Language, But...". Tannoy isn't an American word. I don't think I've even come across it in reading British novels or watching Eastenders. But it may be one of those things I just let my mind slide over, as is my wont. However in reading Alex Marswood's well-written if macabre mystery The Killer Next Door recently, I found the word used a couple of times quite casually without further elaboration, and must assume that that's because it's a common enough word in England, or at least London, where the novel is set.


I must admit that I rather skipped over the first reference, but when I came upon it a second time, I found myself stopping to sort it out:


"The rhythms of the London underground: shrill beeps, a brief flicker of the lights as they pass out of the station, something incomprehensible on the tannoy." (page 308).


Something about the way it was written made me think at first that the tannoy was the platform and that the character in question was referring to an object. But a second go made me realize that the tannoy was some kind of sound system or loudspeaker. If I'd paid more attention the first time, though, I would have known this already:


"...the tannoy playing a recorded announcement on the unmanned station platform"(page 90).


It turns out that Tannoy is actually a trademarked name, though it isn't capitalized in the novel, and in this sense is much like dumpster or crockpot in being used generically but still having a registered trademark which means that it really should still be capitalized. The Tannoy is a loudspeaker, but the sense has extended to mean many sorts of public address systems as well, as is the case in the novel.


Tannoy Ltd. is a Scotland based company that was started in London and is now owned by the Danes. Or a Danish group anyway. The word is an acronym of the words "tantalum alloy" which was the metal used in an electrolytic rectifier (don't worry, we're not going down that particular road today) and the reason Wikipedia gives for it becoming a household name is that it was the supplier of PA systems to the troops during World War II, and subsequently to British holiday camps, as well as providing amplifiers for home use.

Yes, that's none other than Cyril Ritchard, aka Captain Hook!

Tannoy is kind of an odd word for a public address system, considering that I don't have the impression that the metal itself is even used in the loudspeakers, though I could be wrong. On the other hand, "loudspeaker" is a kind of odd word too, when you start to listen to it. It seems a bit obvious and ponderous, but then I guess many English words do, once you break them down.











27 comments:

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  2. I've long known what "tannoy" means, but it never fails to strike my eye as odd. And what we call a loudspeaker, the sort of thing police would use to communicate with a hostage taker, is often called a loud hailer in English crime novels. I like the plainspoken charm of that term.

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  3. Loudhailer is great, Peter. I don't know that I've run across it before.

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  4. I consider tannoy a bit of an old fashioned word. Like foyer. I suspect few people younger than me use it. It's used generically, as you say. Like hoover, for vacuum cleaner. Which is also a verb.

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  5. That's interesting, Paul. I wonder why it passed out of fashion. I am familiar with the verb hoover, but as far as I know it's not common here. We just say vacuum, unless I'm forgetting something.

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  6. Me too. And tannoy and hoover. An pamphlet.

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  7. Pamphlet? I think we still say pamphlet here all the time. Although maybe we don't have so many of them anymore, come to think of it.

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  10. This seems as good a time as any to repost a favorite article from The Economist that explains why it is wrong to capitalize trademarked words that have passed into common usage.

    Foyer always struck as pretentious, maybe because I grew up calling it a front hall. I remember laughing when an elementary school friend referred to the front hall of his house as a vestibule. I am convinced that foyer is popular among real estate agents and in home decorating magazines because a bit of French never fails to confer, er, cachet.

    But foyer’s history in English is worth a look. The French word foyer is equivalent to the English hearth in both its literal and extended senses. How one gets from that to “front hall” or “lobby” is probably an interesting story.

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  11. Foyer does sound like grist for the mill here, Peter. I'll put it on the long, long list.

    I think I've seen that article before or another like it from you, Peter, but you're right, it does bear repeating.

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    1. Oh, I'm quite sure you've seen that article several time from me, as have my colleagues at work. My boss once circulated it as a memo, with a few changes to reflect American. (Biro, whether uppercase or lower, is not used here.) But our stye and, far worse, our practice with respect to Dumpster is still far beyond belief or sense.

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    2. ... to reflect American USAGE, that is.

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  12. Foyer is to lobby as Porte-cochère is to awning. Vestibule is at least entertaining. Styrofoam irks.

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  13. I think we just called it the entryway when I actually lived in a house that had one. Styrofoam? Yes, it's something that wasn't thought through to the end, I think.

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  14. Seana

    Indeed Tannoy like Hoover should always be capitalised in British fiction. It isnt always of course but it should be. PA has been creeping in lately but I like Tannoy.

    Other surprising devices that are trademarked are: Windsurfers (sailboard is what you must use if you want to avoid the TM) and Roller Blades (in-line skates are what they are called in the New York Times).

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    1. Adrian, see the article to which I link in a previous comment for an explanation of why tannoy and hoover should not be capitalized in British fiction. The argument is that capitalizers make the mistake of thinking trademark protection extends beyond trade.

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  15. Someone told me once that Americans dont say corridor but prefer hall-way. Can that be true?

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  16. Thanks, Adrian. Peter is going to disagree with you if he checks back in here, though.

    I wouldn't say corridor is unknown, but I think hallway sounds less formal to the American ear. I think of corridors as having to door with school, as in don't run in them, and corridors of power. But that might just be me.

    Tannoy seems to have a kind of British flavor and specificity that P.A. system just doesn't capture.

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    1. Peter has just checked in, as you predicted he would. Interesting that Adrian should specify that tannoy should be capitalized in British fiction, provided it is used generically. In fact, it sh9uld be capitalized only in non-British fiction, or at least fiction for a non-British audience, because it would not have come into generic use.

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    2. I wonder how that figures in with the book I found it in, which is written by a British person, and published by a nominally British press, Penguin, but is being distributed here to an American audience.

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    3. Pubisher;'s decision, I suspect. I recently encountered American spellings in a book where I would have expected British.

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  17. Peter

    I know that in the Guardian style manual they dont capitalise now. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. Now that i think about it this: "I'm off to do the hoovering" works better than this "I'm off to do the Hoovering."

    Speaking of corridors and hallways I was watching the Imitation Game the other and I noticed that they said the phrase "you're fired" half a dozen times. I'm pretty sure that outside of PG Wodehouse British people universally said "you're sacked" until about 5 or 10 years ago.

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    1. And one think that posh characters would be all the more likely to use "sacked."

      The reason "hoovering" works better is that you naturally accept the word as generic. And that's a good sign that it has become generic. Once that happens. kiss capitalization good-bye.

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  18. When I think about it, we may even just say the hall rather than the hallway more frequently.

    Fired does seem to come from American English, but it was in the 1880s, so I don't know when it crept into British language. Apparently, they first said "fired out" but that didn't last long.

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  19. This is an interesting site, Seana.

    http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2013/01/word-of-the-week-tannoy.html

    Happy New Year to all, Maria

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