What is the Difference between Call, Phone and Ring?

 

Today on Ask a Teacher, we answer an email from Nathaniel in South Sudan. He asks:

Question: What is the difference between phone, call and ring?

Answer: Hi, Nathaniel! That is a great question. We use these words when talking about telephone calls and other kinds of communication.

All three words can be used as nouns² and have a verb form. Today, I will be looking at the verb forms.

Phone

The Scottish-born scientist and engineer Alexander Graham Bell is famous for his invention of the telephone. In 1876, the United States government approved a patent on Bell’s telephone. The move gave him the exclusive³ right to the technology. So no one else could manufacture⁴ or sell his invention for a number of years.

Since that time, people have shortened⁵ the noun¹ "telephone" to "phone" and started to use it as a verb, meaning to call someone on a telephone. In Britain, it is common to hear people use the verb "ring" for this same purpose. But there is no rule that requires a speaker of American English to only use "phone" or a speaker of British English to only use "ring."

Here are some examples of how we use "phone."

Can I phone my wife? She would know the answer to this.

She couldn't stop to phone for help.

Ring

You may hear the verb "ring" when someone talks about the sound of alarm bells.

I heard the doorbell ring.

The sign said, 'Ring for Service.'

In addition, a common two-word verb is "ring up." We may ask a store employee to "ring up" our purchase, that is, enter the prices on a machine.

Google’s Ngram Viewer is an online tool to learn about words. It looks at the words from Google books to show how often people use words over time and in what places.

We used the Google Ngram Viewer to compare British and American usage⁶ of the three words. The first ngram looked at British English. It found that the word 'ring' was a little more popular than 'phone.'

The second ngram looked at American English. It found that 'phone' is more popular than 'ring.'

Call

In both online tests, the word "call" was much more common than either ‘phone’ or ‘ring’. English speakers often use "call" to talk about using the telephone to contact someone, such as in the following sentence:

Call the police.

Even more often, we use it in a general sense, as in “give a name to” or “label.”

They do not want us to call them pirates⁸, but they are stealing.

Do you call that bag of potato chips your dinner?

We also use “call” in the sense of “ask” or “request.”

Let’s call a meeting for tomorrow afternoon.

So here is my advice on using phone, call and ring:

You can use any one of them to refer to making a telephone call. “Call” is the most common in American English. As you learn more English, you will learn many expressions that include “call.” I’ll share one with you here:

Let’s call it a day.

That is, our work is done; let’s take a deep breath and relax.

And that’s Ask a Teacher!

I’m Jill Robbins.

Words in This Story

alarm - n. a device⁹ that makes a loud sound as a warning or signal

bells – n. a hollow¹⁰ usually cup-shaped metal object that makes a ringing sound when it is hit

online – adj. connected to other computers

pirate⁷ - n. someone who attacks and steals from a ship at sea

chips – n. a thin, hard, and usually salty piece of food

refer – v. to direct someone’s attention to

1 noun   

n.名词

参考例句：

• What kind of noun is this?这是哪类名词？
• This word is a collective noun.这个词是个集体名词。

2 nouns   

n.名词；名词( noun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns. 法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Nouns join to form compounds. 名词和名词结合构成复合词。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 exclusive   

adj.不包括的，不算在内的，独有的，独享的

参考例句：

• The hotel charges 6 pounds a day,exclusive of meals.这家旅馆一天收六英镑，不包括饭钱。
• This bathroom is for the President's exclusive use.这间浴室是总统专用的。

4 manufacture   

n.产品，制造，制造业；vt.制造，加工；vi.参与制造

参考例句：

• The equipment is of our own manufacture.这设备是我们自己制造的。
• Plastic is an important manufacture.塑料是种重要产品。

5 shortened   

v.弄短，缩短( shorten的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She shortened the skirt by an inch. 她把裙子缩短了一英寸。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Vacations have lengthened and the work week has shortened. 假期延长，工作周就缩短了。 来自辞典例句

6 usage   

n.惯用法，使用，用法

参考例句：

• I am clear about the usage of this word at last.这个词的用法我算是弄明白了。
• The usage is now firmly established.这种用法现已得到确认。

7 pirate   

n.海盗，每盗船

参考例句：

• The pirate chief commanded that the prisoners should be shot.海盗头子下令枪毙俘虏。
• The shore batteries fired at the pirate boat.海岸炮兵向海盗船开火。

8 pirates   

n.海盗( pirate的名词复数 )；剽窃者；侵犯版权者；非法播音的人（或组织）

参考例句：

• Children dressed (themselves) up as pirates. 孩子们假扮成海盗。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The pirates treated their captives with barbarity. 海盗们残暴地对待他们的俘虏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 device   

n.器械，装置；计划，策略，诡计

参考例句：

• The device will be in production by the end of the year.该装置将于年底投入生产。
• The device will save much time and effort for us.这种装置会使我们节省大量时间和气力。

10 hollow   

adj.空的，中空的，空心的；空洞的，无价值的

参考例句：

• The boys scraped out a hollow place for planting trees.那些孩子挖了个坑准备栽树。
• Bamboo is a sort of hollow plant.竹子是一种中空的植物。