A beep is a short, single tone, typically high-pitched, generally made by a computer or other machine. The term has its origin in

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...

. The word "beep-beep" is recorded for the noise of a car horn in 1929, and the modern usage of "beep" for a high-pitched tone is attributed to Arthur C. Clarke in 1951.

Use in computers

In some

computer terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal and ...

s, the

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

character code 7,

bell character A bell code (sometimes bell character) is a device control code originally sent to ring a small electromechanical bell on tickers and other teleprinters and teletypewriters to alert operators at the other end of the line, often of an incoming me ...

, outputs an audible beep. The beep is also sometimes used to notify the user when the BIOS is not working or there is some other error during the start up process, often during the

power-on self-test A power-on self-test (POST) is a process performed by firmware or software routines immediately after a computer or other digital electronic device is powered on. This article mainly deals with POSTs on personal computers, but many other embed ...

(POST). A beep is also made when holding down too many keys at the same time, as the computer often cannot handle the processes. The command-line interfaces of the ReactOS, PTS-DOS,

SISNE plus SISNE plus is a DOS 3.3 compatible clone created by Itautec and Scopus Tecnologia in Brazil prior to the end of the Market Reserve in 1991, which, at that time, forbade the importation of electronic equipment and software for general use. With ...

, and AROS

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

s include a beep

command Command may refer to: Computing * Command (computing), a statement in a computer language * COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS * Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards * ...

. A beep command is also part of

's ''MSX-DOS2 Tools'' for MSX-DOS version 2.

Use in transport

Beeps are also used as a warning when a

truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame constructi ...

, lorry or bus is reversing. It can also be used to define the sound produced by a car horn. Colloquially, beep is also used to refer to the action of honking the car horn at someone, (e.g., "Why did that guy beep at me?"), and is more likely to be used with vehicles with higher-pitched horns. "Honk" is used if the sound is lower pitched (e.g.

Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...

s beep, but

Oldsmobile Oldsmobile or formally the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it pro ...

s honk. On

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

s, beeps may be used for communications between members of staff.

Use in telecommunication

Call waiting

A beep is also a colloquialism for a zip tone to indicate a telephone call coming in on the same phone line as someone is currently speaking, either on a

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

. The

call waiting Call waiting is a telephone service where a subscriber can accept a second incoming telephone call by placing an in-progress call on hold—and may also switch between calls. With some providers it can be combined with additional features such a ...

feature often outputs an audible "beep" noise to indicate that there is a second call coming in.

Paging

The electronic

pager A pager (also known as a beeper or bleeper) is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknow ...

is often referred to as a "beeper" for the sound it emits to alert its owner to an incoming message.

Call back request

As a noun, the practice of "beeping" in sub-Saharan Africa refers to the cell phone phenomenon during which a person dials a number but immediately cancels the call before it is answered in order to elicit a call back from the recipient. One reason for this practice is to elicit a recipient to call back when the caller has almost run out of prepaid units for his/her cell phone but still wants or needs to talk to the recipient. In Rwanda, this practice has evolved into an art for courting between men and women, where women "beep" males in order to elicit a call back, which manifests the man's interest and willingness to pay for the woman's call. At times, this practice can be an inconvenience for the recipient, and at times, people ignore the "beeps." "Beeping" is also known as "flashing" in sub Saharan Africa, and is known as "menacing" or "fishing" in Indonesia..

Censorship

The use of

profanity Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, rud ...

and offensive language on

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

broadcasts in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, Australia,

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

, and Japan is sometimes censored by replacing the profane word or phrase with an audible beep(s), often accompanied by obscuring the speaker's mouth to prevent lip-reading. If there is a closed captioning, the word is commonly replaced by asterisks, used as a mixture of letters and asterisks, or " leep is used.

References

External links

* {{Dead link, date=November 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes . Onomatopoeia