Fun fact, it’s a carryover from when dial service was first implemented in the United States!
In the beginning, you’d pick up the phone and hear “Number please?” and then you’d tell the operator the central office name followed by the number, like “Bubbling Brook 3-2468” or “Murray Hill 5-9975”
Once dial service was implemented, you’d instead hear the dial tone and then dial the first two letters of the office name, followed by the rest of the number (BU32468 or MU59975), using this arrangement of letters.
Once phone numbers went to all-digits around 1961, the letters on the dial got repurposed for numbers like these. Of course, they got repurposed again for T9 texting and contact search.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
That’s a more modern version. Q and Z were originally left off, which lets the numbers 2 through 9 have only three letters each. You wouldn’t find mnemonic numbers listed with those letters. Which was fine, because they aren’t common letters in English, anyway.
They got added when cell phone text messaging got big on flip phones. Then you had to have them.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 5 months ago
If you want to see a monkey, just call 555-123 SOO.
DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Damn. That’s a great piece of info. I didn’t know about this stuff until I moved to the US. lol. Thank you for the education of course.