Word Spy - yell phone

n. A cell phone, especially one into which a person is talking in a loud voice.

Example Citation:

"A few weeks ago, three members of Lil' Kim's posse stopped at a deli in Brooklyn, on the way to the airport. A guy inside was barking into his yell phone. The apprentice rappers asked him to talk more quietly. (And hey: If a rapper thinks you're too loud, you're too loud.) The man went on yelling."
—Pete Hamill, "Condit least of our woes," Daily News, August 27, 2001

Earliest Citation:

All New York voices, including the ya-ya voice, have been augmented by the yell phone, a/k/a the cell phone.
—Richard Brookhiser, "Can We Talk?," National Review, July 12, 1999

Notes:

This phrase will tickle the fancy of anyone who has been subjected to one side of an obnoxiously loud cell phone conversation. (Cell phone rule #37: The smaller the phone, the more likely a person is to holler into it.) Despite the fact that nincompoops have been shouting into their cell phones for about as long as these phones have been a plague on the land, the yell phone variation appears to be only a couple of years old, as shown by the earliest citation, below.

A shout out to Word Spy subscriber Shari Nadelman for letting me know about today's phrase.

In case you're wondering, the phrase ya-ya- voice used in the earliest citation is a coinage of Mr. Brookhiser's. Here's his explanation:

"Then there is the current rage, ... the speech pattern of young white women: the ya-ya voice. In cafes, shoe stores, bars, wherever two twenty-five-somethings gather together, or where even one has cornered a boyfriend, you hear the high, piercing patter: ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya. If dogfish or other small sharks could speak, they would speak like this."

Category:

Cell Phones

Posted on October 4, 2001