In the United States of America, Mary Moore was the first national voice of the Bell System

Bell System

The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...

's standardized speaking clock

Speaking clock

A speaking clock service is a recorded or simulated human voice service, usually accessed by telephone, that gives the correct time. The first telephone speaking clock service was introduced in France, in association with the Paris Observatory on 14 February 1933.The format of the service is...

 and also provided the voice behind many telephone company recordings on equipment manufactured by Audichron

Audichron

Audichron was a talking clock, or a time announcer which was developed and produced by the Audichron Company, starting in the 1930s. There were several types of Audichron machines including the stand time piece , M12, temperature machine and the Comparator.-STM:STM stood for "Small Town Machine"....

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Moore's voice was often recognized for the distinctive two-syllable pronunciations of 9 ("NY-un") and 5 ("Fy-uv"). This was a required of telephone operators at the time, because "nine" and "five" can sound very similar on a poor-quality line.

Prior to Moore's recordings and Audichron equipment, an operator would sit in a room and read the time every 10 seconds. Callers reaching a disconnected number would be informed by the operator personally. Moore had one of these reading jobs herself before she was formally recorded.