"telling bone" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "A Hobson-Jobson based on interpreting telephone as telling + bone; coined by British screenwriter Richard Carpenter for the TV series Catweazle.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "telling bones",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "telling bone (plural telling bones)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 134",
          "text": "His eyes widened. The box contained the Divine Egg! The strange sorcerer who was muttering into the telling-bone had found lots of them.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1985 May 12, The Canberra Times, page 22, column 1",
          "text": "Lately, Fergus has been even more insufferable: he's in love, a piece of intelligence I winkled out of the elder curmudgeon, his grandfather, the Laird of Gunning, on the telling bone last night.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, The Spectator, London",
          "text": "When we land I'll give you a tinkle on the telling bone.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021, John Martin, Different Stripes: The first six quirky novels of the Windy Mountain series, John Martin",
          "text": "She's visiting her sister in Launceston and I spoke to her on the telling bone last night.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The telephone."
      ],
      "id": "en-telling_bone-en-noun-MycHHwIE",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "telephone",
          "telephone"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "preceded by definite article",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(humorous, preceded by definite article) The telephone."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Catweazle",
        "Richard Carpenter (screenwriter)"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "telling bone"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "A Hobson-Jobson based on interpreting telephone as telling + bone; coined by British screenwriter Richard Carpenter for the TV series Catweazle.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "telling bones",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "telling bone (plural telling bones)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 134",
          "text": "His eyes widened. The box contained the Divine Egg! The strange sorcerer who was muttering into the telling-bone had found lots of them.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1985 May 12, The Canberra Times, page 22, column 1",
          "text": "Lately, Fergus has been even more insufferable: he's in love, a piece of intelligence I winkled out of the elder curmudgeon, his grandfather, the Laird of Gunning, on the telling bone last night.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, The Spectator, London",
          "text": "When we land I'll give you a tinkle on the telling bone.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021, John Martin, Different Stripes: The first six quirky novels of the Windy Mountain series, John Martin",
          "text": "She's visiting her sister in Launceston and I spoke to her on the telling bone last night.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The telephone."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "telephone",
          "telephone"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "preceded by definite article",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(humorous, preceded by definite article) The telephone."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Catweazle",
        "Richard Carpenter (screenwriter)"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "telling bone"
}