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Spoken numbers
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Jul 12, 2007
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I remember hearing a comedian talk about how people mess up saying their phone number out loud. As Americans with 10-digit phone numbers, we expect a spoken format like this: 1,2,3 ... 4,5,6 ... 7,8,9,0 The comedian said he was talking to someone who offered to give him their phone number. It went like this: 1,2,3,4 ... 5 ... 6,7,8,9,0 I just had a similar experience with my credit card number. I called a place to pay a bill over the phone, and I gave them my credit card number like this: 1,2,3,4 ... 5,6,7,8 ... 1,2,3,4 ... 5,6,7,8 Credit card numbers are conveniently divided into 4 groups of 4 digits for that exact reason (or so I would presume) (except American Express, but they're stupid). After I gave the woman my number, she read it back to me to verify. It went like this: 1,2,3 ... 4,5,6 ... 7,8,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 My head almost exploded. How could someone come to the conclusion that reading a group of 16 digits in that way would be even close to logical? I realize not everybody thinks like me, but give me a break. This is ridiculous. Sometimes I think things happen just to mess with me.
Another similar thing happened twice today as I payed other bills over the phone (their stupid websites were broken). I received a confirmation number from that automated electronic lady that navigates you through all those stupid phone menus. The first one wasn't too bad; it was 6 digits, which is short enough to not divide into separate parts: 3,4,9,8,2,5 But even though it was short, I could barely follow it because it came out of her mouth (or whatever she talks out of) like an explosion. Of course it took about 2 minutes for her to get through stating my 16-digit credit card number, but it took about 0.5 seconds to give me the 6-digit verification number. It was less of a "3,4,9,8,2,5" and more like a "349825". A few minutes later, I payed a different bill over the phone and was given a 9-digit verification number. It was no less than twice as ridiculous. I started writing it down and could barely keep up. Plus, I had no idea when it would end. What an experience.
Update (2007-08-20 10:46am): I just realized this is very similar to this. #language
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