What ever happened to the WORDS used in phone numbers?

[Jerry.Tan]

When I was young, phone numbers has a WORD at the beginning. If you're over 60, you'll probably remember this:

For example:

Hilltop5-5555 = hi5-5555 which is 445-5555 Spring2-5555 = sp2-5555 which is 772-5555 Worth8-5555 = wo8-5555 which is 968-5555 Orchid3-5555 = or3-5555 which is 673-5555 Victory1-5555 = vi1-5555 which is 841-5555 Tiger4-5555 = ti4-5555 which is 844-5555

These seemed to make it easier to remember phone numbers, and the words were usually simple words that were easy to remember. The word was assigned by the phone company. It seems they stopped doing this around the mid 1960's. I wonder why they stopped?

Anyone know the reason?

Of course you can assign your own words. But no one will know what you're talking about unless they are at least 60 years old.

For example,

762----- can be SOund2 or POny2 or SOuth2 ROund2, POlice2 etc..... 536----- can be LEmon6 or JElly6 or KEndra6 .... and so on....

If your number is 536-1234 Just tell your friends to call LEmon6-1234.

[micky]

I don't think we need the middle step, but maybe I'm smarter than the rest of them.

Especially in Chicago, where the exchanges were MIdway, HYde Park maybe, and a couple others I forget that related to the neighborhood.

I'm guessing because some pairs of numbers had no good words to go with them, and they didn't think we could handle it to have a mix of words and numbers. As the head of AT&T said, "You can't handle it!"

My exchange is WAllabee-2. I really should try that. But I need to meet someone who doesn't know my number. .... I got a call today from a guy I haven't talked to since his wedding, 31 years ago. He got my number from WhitePages.com . We talked for an hour.

He had been looking in Facebook, but I'm not there under my real name. He's there but only under his first and middle names, so why he thought I'd be there, I don't know.

I have to tell you about when my mother moved to western Pa. in 1945, from Indianapolis. While NYC and probably some other places had dial phones already, we didn't. So my mother would tell the operator, OLiver 4-1383 please, or Oliver 4-3343 please,and after a couple days or weeks, the operator told her, You don't have to say Oliver 4, Ma'am. They're all Oliver 4.

I remember when I came home and they had installed dials. They changed the phone in my parents' bedroom entirely, but the wall phone in the idtchen they took the top off, connected a couple wires, and attached a top with a dial.

One time I called my best friend and I heard click click, click click click. I hung up and our phone rang. He had been calling me. The phone didn't ring at his end when I called.

[Jerry.Tan]

When I was REAL young, my parents phone was on a "party line". Sometimes I'd pick up the phone, and the other party would be talking. I still dont understand how that worked. I assume the other party had a different phone number. My guess is that they ran two phone numbers thru the same wires to save on wires. My parents were glad when they got rid of the party line, but I think they had to pay a little more.

[micky]

Yes, somehow they would have a different ring, I think. You were supposed to only answer your own ring.

When we moved back to Indy and my mother signed up for the phone, the customer service person said she could get a party line with no other party on it, so she'd save money with no inconvenience. I'm sure we were not the only ones who got that.. And I think we had that for the whole

8 years we were there. But maybe we had to change to a private line eventually and she didnt' mention it.

[Joe]

Maybe the bastards wanted to charge extra for using a word prefix but the FCC wouldn't let them?

[Pat]

When we were young, if the middle digit of the first 3 digits was a 0 or a 1, then it was an area code. All area codes had a 0 or 1 as the middle digit and all central office prefixes had a 2 thru 9 as the middle digit. Only 2 thru 9 had letters on the standard dial/keypad. When they started running out of prefixes in big cities, they dropped the use of letters. Much later, they started running out of area codes that met the 0 or 1 rule, so they changed to a computerized system with lists of valid area codes and prefixes. Now, the 0/1 rule is completely gone.

Regarding party lines mentioned by others, they were indeed used to save wires. It cost a lot of money to run a pair of copper wires from a home all the way to the local central office up to five miles away. When phones changes from a luxury item to a necessity, it took time to run all those new wires, too. Someone mentioned listening for your special ring. However, there was an interim step where you shared a line with others, but your phone didn't ring unless the call was for you. That was implemented by putting the signal on just one of the two normally balanced (neither wire grounded) phone wires. One home's bells were connected from "red" to ground while the other home's bells were connected from "green" to ground. The actual call took place on the balanced red/green pair for both parties. Using a twisted pair balanced line avoided hum and interference.

[Robert Green]

FCC wouldn't let them?

Probably ran out of 2 letter combos that made sense as part of a larger word. "KK" or "WX" would be hard to assign. In addition, 3 letters map into 1 number, adding to the limitation on assignable prefixes like "Butterfield" or "Teasdale". A while back all area codes had a 0 in the second slot and all toll-free numbers began with 800. Not anymore. You also used to be able to connect just dialing the number without any area code - which was assumed.

Lays out what happens if we run out of telephone numbers in the XXX-XXX-XXXX format. Before anyone has a canary, there are still places that do things the old way and you can dial a neighbor with only 7 digits.

[CRNG]

On Mon, 01 Jun 2015 02:59:06 -0400, micky wrote in

People in the U.S. are no longer smart enough to know the first two letters of a given word spoken to them.

[trader_4]

I would guess that using words for the exchange part of the number goes back to the days when there was an operator that actually plugged wires together to make the connection. So, there was an operator or operators for Hilltop5 and Hilltop was the local neighborhood it served. As they were replaced by the strowger switch, then by electronic switches, more and more exchanges came into play, using words made less sense. It's what's happening with area codes today. Twenty years ago, area codes were pretty good indicators of where the party was located. If you saw 212, you knew it was Manhattan. Now, with VOIP, cell phones, etc that significance is greatly diminishing.

[taxed and spent]

As demand for phone service grew in the post-World War II period, it was foreseeable that it would exceed the addressing capacity of the existing system of using memorable telephone exchange names as prefixes for telephone numbers. Several letter combinations had no pronounceable or memorable names and could not be used. Several North American area codes were split to enable reuse of numbers. However, as the growth accelerated, the Bell System decided to switch to all-number calling (ANC) and to deprecate the use of exchange names. This extended the usable numbering plan and only two area code splits became necessary between 1962 and 1981. All-number calling was phased in slowly starting in 1958. Most areas had adopted it fully by the late 1960s, though it did not become universal until the 1980s. The Bell System published and distributed area code handbooks yearly which compiled the towns available for calling using an area code.

The transition was slow in its implementation, taking the better part of the

1970s and even into the early 1980s to complete. Thus, telephone exchange names were still in use with telephone numbers well after the introduction of area codes.

[bob_villa]

Our no. (in Chgo) when I was growing up was SPring4-5150. Ma and Pa (in WI) had a party line and you only needed to dial the last 5 numbers. Years ago , we had dial-up internet, our copper pair failed on 2 occasions (they woul d just assign another pair. ^L^o^L^

[Stormin Mormon]

Nor do they know the difference between a letter o and a number zero.

I have zero in one of my phone numbers. Every time someone uses letter o when they read it back, I correct them. Zero, not oh. Few actually understand.

- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .

. .

[Ed Pawlowski]

Up until the 90's, in our town you just dialed the last 5 digits on local calls.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

The UK used to have exchange names -- at least in the London area -- of which the first *three* letters were dialed.

In our part of the USA, all numbers within our own area code can now be dialed without the area code, but it was not always that way.

With only 7-digit "subscriber numbers" in a country with the population of the USA, there is no way of assigning area codes logically -- at least without dumping the old 0-or-1-in-the-middle ones, and probably not even then. Australia has 8-digit "subscriber numbers," and the initial digits of area codes (apart from the leading 0 for in-country calls) indicate the State (or group of States), plus one specifically for all cell phones irrespective of location.

With 8-digit "subscriber numbers" the USA could have area codes with the initial digit denoting the region and further digits indicating the State or subset of the region or State. Maybe special area codes within each region for cell phones -- or maybe a set of area codes for cell phones irrespective of location.

Perce

[Ed Pawlowski]

That's what did it. It was a fairly major revamping of the system to recognize other than the 1 and 0 in area codes and allow those digits in exchanges. And you can't make words using the 1 and 0 keys.

Stop and think for a second at just how amazing the technology is. You can sit at your home or office phone and punch numbers and then talk to a person thousands of miles away in another country. Amazing.

Maybe some day we can do it with hand held phones and no wires. Nah, that'll never happen.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

For awhile, I lived in an older part of a city, where old stores had their number painted on the building as ED6- (a number starting with

336, and this was called the EDison exchange).

Most phones still have letters on them, but I know someone who was trying to call the local PBS station (263-KERA) and had a phone without letters.

BTW, Here, you're supposed to dial all 10 digits for a local call. That started about 10 years ago and I still don't know anyone who's number uses the new area code.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

It used to be that ALL local numbers here started with 657- and you didn't have to specify that. That lasted until about 1990, when they installed a new electronic exchange.

I lived on a farm about 5 miles from town. We could call someone in town by dialing 5 digits. IIRC, to call someone on the same party line, you'd have to dial 14 digits (a 4-digit code to ring the same line, then the full 10 digits). To call long distance, we finally got to dial that too, but the operator would still come on and ask for the number I'm calling from (all 10 digits).

I've done almost that. I missed the clicks, but someone came on before I got to dial (and, IIRC, it was the person I was going to call).

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

It's not any problem to connect more than one phone in parallel, but I don't know how then can ring just one of the phones.

Apparently it is true that if too many people are listening, it gets hard to hear.

I'm not sure, but they could use a different ring frequency for each number, and filters on the poles.

I had a relative who had plenty of money, but refused to spend more than he had to. He refused to get a private phone line. I don't remember if he ever did.

[gfretwell]

That is what the yellow and green were in the old 3 wire JK cable. It is selective ringing. One party was on the red/green, one on the red/ yellow.

They stopped using the names for phone numbers about the time they started using area codes. It doesn't make much sense to say 301 LOgan

7 9322 (my phone number from 1954-65)

Some time in the 80s, they also stopped using unique numbers for area codes

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I had an electronics college course in 1980. We were using the debugger program that comes with CP/M (called DDT). There was a 'g' command to run a program. 'g' was followed by an address (g100 was common). There was no specific command to exit the program, instead you would go to address zero. That is, 'g0'. Several students would complain about that not working. They were entering 'go' instead of 'g0'.

I try to avoid saying 'o' (the letter) in phone "numbers". For example, the area code 903 (nine-zero-three, NOT nine-owe-three).

Mark Lloyd

"Trying to find God is a good deal like looking for money one has lost in a dream." [Lemuel K. Washburn, _Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays_]