Bill Bryson: Executives from Western Union [Telegraph Co.] Famously Dismissed the Phone as “An Electrical Toy"
Bill Bryson, British-American author and journalist
[Scroll down for the English]
KISWAHILI
"Wakati Alexander Graham Bell alipovumbua simu mnamo mwaka 1876, hakuna mtu popote, pamoja na Bell, aliyeona uwezo wake kamili. Wengi hawakuona uwezo hata kidogo. Watendaji wanaotoka Western Union [Telegraph Co.] waliitupilia mbali simu hiyo kama "kichezeo cha umeme." Kwa hivyo Bell aliendelea peke yake na akafanya vizuri kutoka kwake, kusema mdogo….
"Kilichofanywa na Bell ni kuunganisha teknolojia tayari zilizopo. Vijenzi muhimu kwa kutengeneza simu vilikuwepo kwa miaka thelathini, na kanuni zilieleweka. Tatizo halikuwa katika kupata sauti ya kusafiri kwa waya...kama katika kuikuza sauti ili ingaliweza kusikika kwa mbali mkubwa."
- Bill Bryson, mwandishi wa Uingereza-Marekani na mwanahabari anayejulikana kwa uandishi wake wa maarifa yenye ukweli kuhusu sayansi, historia, na lugha ya Kiingereza.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
“When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, no one anywhere, Bell included, saw its full potential. Many didn’t see any potential for it al all. Executives from Western Union [Telegraph Co.] famously dismissed the phone as “an electrical toy.” So Bell proceeded independently and did rather well out of it, to say the least….
“All Bell really did was put together existing technologies. The components necessary to make telephones had existed for thirty years, and the principles were understood. The problem wasn’t so much with getting a voice to travel along a wire…as with amplifying it so that it could be heard at a distance.”
- Bill Bryson, British-American author and journalist known for his insightful non-fiction writing on science, history, and the English language.
Chanzo (source): Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010, page 225.