Go on, pick your jaw up off the floor -- this isn't that staggering, now is it? Considering all those cellphones that have been sold here recently, and the plethora of folks who just refuse to ditch that landline, four billion total phone lines seems just about right, truth be told. According to the International Telecommunications Union, our planet is now home to about "1.27 billion fixed lines and 2.68 billion mobile accounts," but the total number of people represented by these data is much less clear. Notably, the study found that "61-percent of the world's mobile subscribers are in developing countries," and further added that China and India were greatly to thank for reaching the milestone. And just think, there were less than 1 billion lines combined across the globe just 11 years ago.

[Image courtesy of OwlRecruitment]

In an otherwise run-of-the-mill profile on cellphone manufacturing giant Nokia, The Seattle Times reveals this funny little tidbit about corporate culture at the Finnish firm: employees are supposedly barred from referring to the company's products as "phones." Instead, according to Vice President of multimedia strategy and business development Harry Santamäki, all of the handsets are known around the company as "multimedia computers," which we're sure elicits more than a few snickers when they're discussing the no-frills, monochrome, um, computers of the 1000 series. And proving that his anti-phone rhetoric isn't just lip service, Santamäki swears that he'll take a swig from the bottle of cod liver oil on his desk if he himself should ever happen to utter the archaic, forbidden word. Unfortunately for Harry, Engadget Mobile will continue to refer to Nokia's products as phones, cellphones, or perhaps even telephones, but luckily a little program called Greasemonkey should enable him to continue reading the site while remaining blissfully phone-free.

[Via textually]