Ringing the doorbell

[nbc@inf.rl.ac.uk]

>>From:	Doug Alan <nessus@mit.edu>
>>Kate has said that at the time she was living in the city and that she
>>found it very stressfull.  She was also very upset about the death of
>>John Lennon.  This made also made her fear for her own safety, living
>>in the city and all, and she installed a security system in her home
>>with remote cameras at the gate so that she could see someone before
>>letting them through.  (This is mentioned, by the way, in the song
>>"All The Love": "So now when they ring I get my machine to let them
>>in.")  The age of 25 is also a very common age for people to be filled
>>with all kinds of angst.
>>|>oug
>
>From:	ames!ultra!corin!keving@uunet.uu.net (Kevin W. Gurney)
>Interesting, Doug. I had always interpreted that line to mean, "When they
>call me on the phone, I let my answering machine let them (i.e. their voice)
>into the room.", like when people screen their calls.
>
>Does the term "to ring" mean to visit, in addition to meaning to call on
>the telephone, in British English?  I had always assumed since the song
>has snippets of answering machine messages in it, that "the machine" was
>simply the answering machine.

It is very common for large houses and appartment buildings (flats to us)
to have entry phones (sometimes called answer phones thought they are different
to the ones used on telephones). Anyone coming to your door "rings" the bell
you speak to them over the entry phone, if you want to let them in you press
a button and the door is automatically opened. This could be interpreted as
a machine letting them in. I am sure similar devices must be common in the
USA - I have certainly seen them in NY.

Neil