Postal_Guide_1939 — Page 401

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

389

Every isolated letter or figure is charged for as a word but groups of initials in common use such as HMS or RAF are counted as five letters to a word il stops are omitted.

Groups of figures are counted at the rate of five figures to a word, and at the same rate for any excess. The same method of counting is applicable to groups of letters and figures forming ordinal numbers, such as 17th, commercial expressions or commercial marks.

Letters added to figures to represent the number of a house, are counted as figures.

Bars of division, decimal points, and stops used in the formation of numbers are counted as figures; otherwise signs of punctuation are not transmitted except at the special request of the sender, and they are then charged for as separate words. As exception, however, a bar of division in the number of a house, for example, 30/A, 30/BIS, is not counted for the purpose of charge.

DEFINITION OF CODE LANGUAGE FOR

PURPOSE OF CDE CHARGE.

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Code language is composed of (1) artificial words, (2) real words not used with the meaning normally assigned to them in the language to which they belong, and consequently not forming intelligible phrases in a plain language. Both kinds of code words may be used in the same telegram, but they must not con- tain any accented letter or any figure.

Words in plain language, proper names and so on, used with their normal meaning, are admissible in a telegram sent at the CDE rate, as also are groups of figures, but the chargeable number of figure groups in the text must not exceed one half of the total chargeable words in the telegram, exclusive of the address.

COUNTING: Code Telegrams.

Code words, whether real or artificial, are ad- missible at the reduced CDE rates only if they do not exceed five letters in length. The sender may, how- ever, divide his code words into groups of not more than five letters each in order to make the telegram eligible for the reduced rate.

Words in plain language, proper names and so on used in code telegrams are counted at the rate of five letters to the word.