Hi everyone! I’m doing English lesson #8 and have just listened to the audio about mobiles / cell phones. I’ve also heard “celly”. Is it slang, colloquial? Is it US?
In Italian we say “cellulare” and also use “telefonino”, which is sort of a “diminutive” form for “telefono” (= telephone) but refers to a cell phone / mobile only.
“Celly”, with the ending -y, sounds to me like “telefonino”, which has -ino, a suffix often used to indicate something “smaller”.
Hi Betty,
‘Celly’ sounds a bit like baby talk to me but maybe in other parts of the world it is acceptable?
Alan
I know that the other meaning of celly is cellmate, so be careful and make sure that thet context does not allow the other interpretation. =)
Hi OTS,
I agree that could cause complications if for example you said: I’m quite lost without my celly. We always go everywhere together.
Alan
Hi Betty,
You’ll occasionally hear people referring to their cell phone as their ‘celly’ here in the US. However, I mostly hear it shortened just to ‘cell’ – as in ‘Call me on my cell.’ (Be careful that you do not use ‘in’ if you tell someone that you’re talking on your cell. lol)
Just as the word ‘telly’ may sound like baby talk to some people but not to others, I suppose a few may think that ‘celly’ also sounds like baby talk for a device people don’t seem to be able to live a single moment without nowadays.
By the way, I’ve heard a rumor that a mobile phone is sometimes referred to as a ‘mobi’ in the UK. I wonder how many might think that sounds like baby talk… 
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[size=75]“It’s getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone.
It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.” ~ Bob Newhart[/size]
Hi Amy,
I have to admit that I’ve never heard it referred to as a ‘mobi’ but who knows who calls what, what nowadays. Then, come to think of it, telly is quite common in referring to ‘television’.
Alan
Hi Betty and everybody,
in Germany, we call a cell phone “handy”. I think that’s amusing considering that the original English word “handy” has a completely different meaning: skillful, convenient. Even though celly sounds a bit childlike, I would prefer saying celly to handy.
Claudia
But ‘telly’ is not commonly used here in the US. That’s a word I’ve only heard used by Brits.
Hi Claudia,
I lived in Germany for 18 years and the Germans are the only people I’ve ever heard use ‘Handy’ to talk about a cell phone/mobile phone. I remember that a lot of Germans thought that the nickname ‘Handy’ had been borrowed from English, but this seems to be strictly a German invention – possibly derived from Handtelefon.
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[size=75]“I thought they were staring at me because I was gay. But it was because I was on the telly.” ~ Julian Clary[/size]
Hi Esl_Expert,
thank you for the info. The ending -y is not commonly used in German. I think that’s why so many Germans thought that “handy” was borrowed from English.
Claudia
Hi Claudia,
I used to live in Swabia, and I remember a joke that the Swabians used to tell constantly about the origin of the word ‘Handy’. They always said that it comes from this question about such a phone (because it was supposedly a commonly asked question when cell phones first appeared): “Hän die koi Schnur?”
lol
I’ve always enjoyed that story. Who knows. Maybe lots of things are behind the name Handy. 
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[size=75]“Instead of a national curriculum for education, what is really needed is an individual curriculum for every child.” ~ Charles Handy [/size]
Hi Esl_Expert,
lol, yeah, that one is pretty funny. There are, in fact, a lot of Germans who refuse to spell “Handy” and write it as “Händie” instead. When I see that, I always pretend to pout and say, “But there’s no such thing as a Händ!”
Claudia
P.S. If the ending -y were indeed the -ino in Italian and “celly” therefore “telefonino” (little telephone), then “handy” would mean “Händchen” (little hand) in German.