A telegram is a message sent through a special communication system that was widely used before telephones became common. When you wanted to send urgent news across long distances, you would go to a telegraph office and write out your message. An operator would then use a machine called a telegraph to transmit your words as electrical signals through wires to another office, where someone would write down or print out the message and deliver it to the recipient.

Telegrams were revolutionary because they could send information across continents in minutes instead of the weeks it took to send a letter by ship or horse. During the 1800s and early 1900s, people used telegrams to share important news: a birth in the family, a business deal, or even declarations of war. Because you paid for each word, telegram messages were famously brief. Instead of writing “I will arrive on Thursday at three o'clock in the afternoon,” someone might telegram: “ARRIVE THURSDAY 3PM STOP” (the word “STOP” replaced periods).

Today, telegrams are mostly obsolete since we have phones, email, and text messages. But the telegram's influence lives on: when we try to write concisely or use abbreviations in texts, we're following the telegram tradition of getting your message across with as few words as possible.