Monday, April 03, 2006

94444 44414 & 28999599

Have you noticed the way people spell out the phone numbers? I was just thinking about how they spell out er.. read these out. Each person has a different way of doing it. Now, isnt that confusing?

You are used to a certain way of reading the telephone number and suddenly, somebody calls you and adds a different punctuation and reads the number to you in a completley new way. Would you understand it? Well for me, I kinda get dis-oriented for a while..I guess my brain is tuned to look at the phone numbers in a certain way and a new way is well, new.....

Okay let us take the example of this cell phone number 94444 44414 ( I do not know whose number this is but it just caught my fancy ) and some of the ways or saying it..

Person 1 : 94(Ninety four) 44(fourty four) 44(fourty four) 44(fourty four) 14(fourteen)
Person 2 : 9(Nine) 444(triple four) 444(triple four) 414(four one four)
Person 3 : 94(Nine four) 444(triple four) 444(triple four) 14(One four)
Person 4 : 9(Nine) 44(double four) 44(double four) 44(double four) (That is three double fours.. this is for extra clarity that people say ) 414(four one four)
Person 5 : 9(Nine) 444(triple four) 4(four) 444(triple four) 14(One four)

When it comes to landlines numbers, it is more fun.. Say you have a number 28999599. The possiblities are little less, I know, but I have heard the weirdest possible ones in these eight digits. Not just the punctuation that differs but also the language.. and if u r someone like me(only the English!)..then man that is surely gonna drive you nuts. Okay so here are some ways of spelling it out

Person 1 : 2(Two) 899(Eight Nine Nine) 95(Nine Five) 99(Nine Nine)
Person 2 : 28(Two Eight) 999(triple Nine) 5(Five) 99 ( double Nine)
Person 3 : 28(iravathi yetu) 99(tonutri onbadhu) 95 (tonutri anju) 99(tonutri onbadhu) (same as Person 2 but in tamil tho!!!)
Person 4: (I term this to be the best I have heard so far..)
rendu kodi, enbathi onbadhu lashathi, tonutri onbadhu aayirathi, ainootri tonutri onbadhu

Oh my God! the number of combination!!!! I am not putting them all down...no no...that would take me ages...
Well, I understand that each person is unique and has a unique way of "looking" at things. But, just one question.. Shouldnt we have one standard way of spelling..er.. reading phone numbers?wouldnt that make lives of people like me easier??

Disclaimer : All the numbers mentioned above are numbers that caught my fancy and any resemblence to an existing landline or cell phone is a mere coincidence.

9 comments:

coolkrishnan said...

Same thoughts about phone nos. have come to my mind in the past.
Nicely put down to words !
I prefer the 5-5 splitting for mobile nos, and 4-4 splitting for landlines....

Found your posts interesting...

Have a nice day !
-coolkrishnan

Anonymous said...

Wow!! You do have your pet peeves don't you? Anyways try the following grouping. Maybe it will help in the future 3 numbers, 3 numbers then remaining. U should also look at date formats.

kaushik said...

ha ha ha
even i get dis-oriented when phone numbers are not presented in my style, that being for cell, first five digits and a paus follwed by the next five and for land line ,2-pause-the next three-pause- the final four
simple!

Anonymous said...

Technically speaking, yes we do have a way to spell out the numbers. Landline phones are 10 digits with the STD Code varying from 2-4 digits, followed by the Telephone exchange code which again ranges from 2-4 digits and then followed by the line number.

So in your example 44 - STD Code, 2899 - Exchange code, 9599 - Line number.. Technically it should be spelled out as (2899)(9599)....

Check out these if u are more interested.

http://www.dotindia.com/numbering_plan/numplan2003.doc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code#India

But yes...our's is a free country...Why should we bother about all these technical stuff..It's upto the listener to interpret whatever we say..

Mukund said...

i have actually cut off calls to my no. when the person calling has spelt it in a different way from how i do it:) guess, the brain gets used to the specific sequence we use

Jagan said...

yeah , when the ppl ask if they hav reached the right number , it is so tempting to say "wrong number" rather than getting embarrassed .

Arvind Srinivasan said...

I think two people have already pointed out, what IMO is an easier convention to follow....

use, exchangecode-number - earlier, when 7 digit phone was in vogue - 3+4 was the exchange-number combo

now it is 4+4

as far as mobile goes - i prefer 3(slight pause)2+3(slight pause)2

Hermit Chords said...

Very interesting. Maybe it's a good brain exercise, to force yourself to read out numbers in ways that are strange to you.

I follow a 5 + 3 + 2 sequence with my number. With my landline, it's 1 + 2 + 2 + 3! Very bizzare...

Vidya said...

@CoolKrishna - Thanx..ya I think that is the format I would follow... its easy that way

@Anon - hmm... roomba naal veli ooru illa irundhutelo?

@kaushik - precisely what I was saying in my post :)

@karthik - that u for the gyan

@Mukund - he he.. I have done that too

@Jagan - tempting?? purinja thane mudhala.. he he

@Arvind - yet another possibility


@Kaushik Ramu - he he .. there u go .. another one.. :) .. man this is confusing isnt it?