Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1914 — SPEAKS FIGURATIVELY; WISHING US “73” [ARTICLE]

SPEAKS FIGURATIVELY; WISHING US “73”

J. Cecil Alter, of U. S. Weather Bureau, Explains Meaning of These Figures.

Salt Lake City, Utah, Meh 24. Dear Rensselaer Republican: I note your reference to the senti-' mental use'of the figures “thirty” in this week’s issue, and it reminds me not only of the little “30” at the bottom of our last telegraphic weather reports every morning and evening, as has been the custom for many years, but that on the occasion of the passing away of a veteran telegraph operator in this city recently a large floral piece, given by fellow employees was a huge “30”, the only flowers in evidence. Perhaps a better “figure” of speech is the “73” which has long been used in telegraphic, government, and other services, .and which means “best regards.” It carries a Christmas, or holiday greeting as fully as a message, and I have even seen it go unden a frank, quite immune from the postage necessary on a message meaning the same thing written out Tn full. In the stiffest, strictest, executive correspondence where coldness and inhumanity seem so often to take the place of personal sympathy, letters that would otherwise give the recipient “gooseflesh,” are softened into the kindest of language and meaning by a tiny “73” in the handwriting of the* signed of the letter. So, my thoughts for you and Jasper county are not “3(F but “73”! J. CECIL ALTER, Local Office, U. 8. Weather Bureau.