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Show WHY OPERATORS ROLL THE R IN SAYING THR-R-EE Why do telephone operators habitually hab-itually say "thr-r-ree?" It has been found that sounds such as th, f, v, s and z are the most difficult to understand because they depend upon very high frequencies. Some frequencies of th, f and v exceed. ex-ceed. 5,000 a second which is about the maximum frequency of human voice waves. This explains central's fondness for rolling her r'a when she pronounces the word "thr-f-ee." In her training for telephone work she has been instructed that the th sound is difficult to hear over the wire and must be accented if it is to be understood. In her effort to speak the difficult sound intelligibly, she usually puts so much stress upon it that it becomes something like "thuh." This causes her to make two syllables of the word "three." I A I |