wire service acronym for president of the United States (or President of the United States), occasionally used outside wire transmissions by those seeking to establish journalistic credibility, a survival from the Phillips Code, created 1879 by U.S. journalist Walter P. Phillips to speed up transmission by Morse code, but obsolete from c.1940 with the widespread use of teletype machines. Other survivals include SCOTUS for "Supreme Court of the United States."