5 ms·
I always wonder how much lawyers in the US pay for their phone numbers... 444-4444 or 888-8888 and so on. I would guess it's even more?
by blakesterz 8y ago
I always wonder how much lawyers in the US pay for their phone numbers... 444-4444 or 888-8888 and so on. I would guess it's even more?
- mc32 8y agoOr 1800-flowers/glasses etc.
- Mirioron 8y agoHow do you input a number like that?
- occamschainsaw 8y agoUsing the old timey keyboard layout[1] (a relic of pre-touchscreen phones) So 1800-flowers would be 1800-3569377 [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.161 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.161
- Mirioron 8y agoSo that's what the letters were for on phone keyboards.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoThe use for vanity numbers is a later development. Originally the three digit exchange "number" in North America was identified by a three letter code. On a phone with no dial you'd tell the operator the exchange codeword and the four digit number within the exchange if you didn't want to manually pulse the switchhook. For automatic switch dialed calls, the dial needed to also be marked for these letter codes so you didn't need to use a separate reference for the corresponding digit.
- govg 8y agoA lot of phones come with the English alphabet on the 12 keys, three letters to a key. Similar to older phones that had a physical dialpad. You could then dial the "word" you want by looking at the number on which the correct letter is. That's one way these systems could work.
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoOn many (American) phone keypads, 1 is blank, 2 is A, or B, or C, 3 is DEF, 4 is GHI, 5 is JKL, 6 is MNO, 7 is PQRS, 8 is TUV, and 9 is WXYZ. So for FLOWERS you'd see that the F is on 3, L is on 5, O is on 6, etc. to get 356-9377. Note that both R and S are on 7, they map to the same number, so different words are likely to all map to the same number, like "Roses" and "Ropes". Companies sometimes use longer or shorter numbers: you might see a number written with left-padded numbers, like "1-800-1FLOWER", for which you'd dial 1-800-135-6937. You might also see longer words, like 1-800-ARRANGEMENTS..you could type in 1-800-277-2643 63687, but the extra letters would just go into the recipient's PBX (like dialing an extension) and get discarded.
- Mirioron 8y agoI see. TIL and thank you!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Scoundreller 8y agoSometimes the numbers are forwarded to different numbers based on user area code or other tactics to infer caller location. Ie: they’re licensed to different parties in different locales.
- cpeterso 8y agoI see bus ads for an accident lawyer in California with the phone number (800) 800-0000. I wonder if that phone number is more valuable than 888-8888.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoProbably pretty similar in California advertising to non-Chinese. To Chinese, 8 is a lucky number, so more 8s would be better.