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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!fortune!hess
From: hess@fortune.UUCP (Marty Hess)
Newsgroups: net.games.trivia
Subject: Re: phone-number taxonomy
Message-ID: <3738@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Jul-84 19:15:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: fortune.3738
Posted: Mon Jul  2 19:15:33 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Jul-84 03:18:11 EDT
References: <248@homxa.UUCP>
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 30


	I always thought that only the first two digits of the seven were the
'exchange', and the next FIVE were the 'line number'.  Examples: TYler 8-6100;
MOnroe 6-8365; CLayton 2-1324; . . ..  These are from back in the days when
exchanges were named, and numbers were remembered as words.

The reason for the total of seven digits (as I'm sure we all know...) is the
"7 +/- 2" rule of the capacity of human memory for arbitrary items.

The reason for the 'break' in the sequence was a similar one:  items grouped as
'fives' took just as much work to remember as the whole collection.  They also
tended to represent numbers larger than the average person was casual with.
Hence when grouped as they now are, they represented 'normal' word sequences for
number values, with a universal pause point.  (From the examples above:)

	Tyler eight, six one hundred
	Monroe six, eighty three sixty five
	Clayton two, thirteen twenty four

	I noticed just as I read these back that they seem to sound like scores
from a sports event.  (e.g. Tigers nine, Yankees two.)  Do they strike anyone
else this way?

--
"As usual Mr. Phelps, none of the preceding has any basis in fact."

	Marty Hess	Software Engineer - Graphics

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