Daebo says "paper", but it's not a given that sheets of cellulose fibers should be called "paper". The word is derived from "papyrus", but paper isn't made from papyrus. It could just as well have been named after linen, wood or parchment.

In the next step, it's not a given that a printed collection of news should be called a "paper" just because it's printed on paper. The Swedish word for "paper" is "papper", but the word for "newspaper" is "tidning", with a completely different root. And it doesn't stop there. It's "avis" in Norwegian, "blað" in Icelandic, and "krant" in Dutch. That's five different roots just among the Germanic languages, even though all these languages use slight variations of "paper" for the material.

We could disassemble the entire English language in this way. There is no reason why people in another world should speak anything that even remotely resembles any language spoken on Earth – except that it would get in the way of the storytelling if the characters had to spend years learning a new language after every jump.

Once I suspend my disbelief and accept that English is spoken in the anima world, I have no problem with "telephone". The idea of telephony is apparently widespread in their culture, just like the idea of teleportation is widespread in our culture even though we can't build a teleport. Somehow they speak English, so they use the English word "telephone".

Kek Ulto Kek

I see what you did thar.

This "telephone" discussion is nice and all, but probably moot in the grand scheme of this story arc. We'll probably not see it mentioned again in any strip after this point. It feels like Pete was merely pointing out the state of the tech and why. Though I still disagree with calling it that.

Though the thing we all should really be focusing on is that everyone speaks and reads in English (except for when they first arrived in the dimension's past). Of course that's a whole different bag of snakes that's probably best left alone.

I think writing is likely acceptable because it evolved first and primarily as record keeping in trade, at least with some writing systems, not the transmission of personal thoughts, and so established was it in society that it is no longer new, and thus less likely to be challenged or questioned.