Just Pick Up That Phone and Spell Me

Ray G. Coutchie points out correctly that in my frequent complaints about the illusory conveniences of modern technology, I have neglected one he hates--the alphabetical telephone number.

“This particular item has bugged me for some time,” he grumbles. “Each time I must dial a number which is made up of letters rather than numbers--how can it be called a ‘number?’ ”

Coutchie says he recently had occasion to call the city Department of Water & Power, whose number was listed on his bill as 1-800-DIAL-DWP. “Try it. By the time you have searched out the letters you could have punched the numbers out, had your conversation and hung up.”

I am acquainted with alphabetical phone numbers mostly from hearing them on my car radio. I do see some merit in using them on commuter-time commercials. It is not easy to remember a seven-digit number. Easier to remember three digits and a word like BUGS (for an exterminator). Also, it is not easy, while driving, to write down a number.

However, I agree with Coutchie that little is gained by using an alphabetical number on one’s stationery or in magazine or newspaper advertising or in the phone book. He is quite right that trying to dial BUGS is a lot harder than dialing 2847. The numbers on our push-button phones are large, and there is only one number to a button. The letters, however, are tiny, and there are three letters to a button. Nothing is gained by letter numbers but frustration.

Perhaps the number I hear most often while driving is the number for Michael Jackson’s KABC talk show. I believe there are different three-number prefixes for different regions (the Valley, Orange County, Los Angeles) but all the numbers end in TALK. To dial TALK you have to find the letters first--T is on 8, A is on 2, and L and K are on 5.

I suppose that if alphabetical numbers (an oxymoron) become pervasive, we could all eventually learn that A, B, and C are on 2, D, E, and F are on 3, and so on. But I doubt that any of us will ever do it.

It is true, however, that it would be easier to remember TALK than to remember 8255. But not much. Still, what if you remembered the prefix numbers but forgot the last four? What would be the odds against punching them correctly by chance, the way you are sometimes tempted to do when you have forgotten someone’s number?

My son Curt tells me that the odds against punching a four-digit number by chance are 10,000 to 1, since there are 10,000 possible combinations of four digits. If you try to punch the whole seven-digit number by chance, however, the odds go up to 10 million to 1. According to LOTTO, the odds against winning the jackpot on a lottery ticket are 13,983,816 to 1. The two men who bought 20,000 tickets were bucking odds of 700 to 1, according to UCLA mathematician Donald Ylvisaker.

Aside from the fact that they are hard to dial, alphabet numbers are rather fun. In just a casual search of the Yellow Pages I find a dentist whose number is 1-800-DENTIST; a dog training school, 1-800-334-DOGS; a treadmill distributor, 275-WALK; a gun shop, 938-GUNS; the City of Hope National Medical Center, 1-800-826-HOPE; the Taxi Insurance Brokerage, 760-TAXI; a liquor store, 485-WINE; an eye clinic, 292-EYES; a pawnbroker, 1-800-888-PAWN; and the Bank of America, 1-800-THE B OF A. My gym partner, Pat Riley, a lawyer specializing in motorcycle cases, has 1-800-MC RIDER. (Wisely, most listings also give the number in digits.)

I suppose the telephone company, like the Department of Motor Vehicles in issuing personalized license plates, has the problem of duplication. Once they have assigned DENTIST to one subscriber, that is the end of DENTIST.

I thought it interesting that of the 21 dentists listed as specializing in endodontics (root canals) none elected to have words instead of numbers. That means that ROOT is still available, and so, for that matter, is PAIN.

But the one I liked best was under crematoria. It is a company called Ashes to Ashes, and their phone number--what else?--is LA ASHES.