Phone number reading: an experimental poll

[forthright]

Okay, readers, here is your opportunity to aid in the cause of Science! I am doing some preliminary research on how people read numbers in various contexts, focusing initially on phone numbers (North American format). This poll is designed to help me develop further research questions; I'm not using the results directly as data, so I'm not

Comments

[fearsclave]

This taps right in to one of my major psychotic workplace peeves. I always clearly and slowly enuniciate phone numbers whether in person or on voice messages. People who spit out phone numbers in mumbled tones so that I have to listen to the message three times to make sure I've got it right drive me up the bloody wall.

And then there are people whose email .sigs do not include all their contact information...

[sraun]

I have a nasty habit with people - especially salespeople - who rattle off their phone numbers quickly into voice-mail.

If I get their voice-mail when I call them back, I rattle my number off as quickly as I can, then leave it again at a speed that can be reasonably transcribed. Whenever I talk to them, I point out that I had no choice - I had to listen to their message as many times as it took to figure out their number to call them back. The people who they're trying to sell stuff to don't have to do that - if someone calls me trying to sell me something, and leaves their number in a fashion that I can't get on the first listen, I delete the message, and they don't get called back.

It's amazing how quickly salespeople get the point. And most of them learned!

[catherinew]

For me, the strings that started out with "four sixty-nine" (obviously short for four hundred and sixty-nine) made my brain assume that the rest of the string would also be in chunks of hundreds or thousands. If the rest of the string was in chunks of ones or tens, I had to expend a lot more mental effort to understand, and my reaction is to go "Say whut?"

[cheesymarzipan]

"four sixty nine" is not necessarily short for "four hundred & sixty nine", but then I'm not used to american phone numbers (or leaving out words like hundred)

[sraun]

The fact that the poll is specifically about US phone numbers limits the possibilities for misinterpretation.

One I have to deal with at work:

zee four hundred fifty-two

Is that Z452 or Z40052 or Z400502? Given the info I'm dealing with, the first two are valid, the third isn't - it gets tossed out. What's really bad is when I repeat back

That's zee four five two?

and get

No, zee four hundred fifty-two

Repeat a couple of times, until one of us says

zee four zero zero five two

Usually it's me. I'm being purposely obtuse - these people are repeating numbers over the phone to our external customers all day, and talking about money. And they really don't understand how to make certain that both sides of the conversation know exactly what string of digits are intended.

[elanya]

Did you realize you have two 'poll 1's there, Mister Numerals? ;P

[mousme]

I spend a lot of time giving out phone numbers over the phone. Therefore, I have developed the habit of saying each digit individually, enunciating as I go.

The trick with phone numbers in order for people to understand is not to combine numbers, and not to speak too fast or too slow.

For your last example, I would definitely say four-six-nine-one-two-zero-zero. I might add "twelve hundred" if I repeat the number, in order to clarify for an anglophone client, but only if I repeat the number, never as a first option.

This is especially important now that we have so many freaking area codes in Montreal.

Anecdotes!

[athelind]

My time in the military left me with the habit of enunciating each number individually; on a bad connection, I'll even use the military pronunciation of "niner" (which you didn't provide as an option

Re: Anecdotes!

[swestrup]

My wife uses military code for things like giving out Canadian postal codes (which are alphanumeric) over the phone. She's gotten confused responses from folks who a) have never heard of the concept and b) can't figure out the first letter of a word chosen for its ease in determining its first letter.