Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!pprg.unm.edu!hc!lll-winken!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Very strange wrong number Message-ID: Date: 16 Feb 89 04:23:37 GMT Sender: news@vector.UUCP Lines: 70 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 64, message 4 of 4 While Roy Smith's story is certainly charming, it is more explicable than it may seem at first glance. I'll take the easy part first: > neither WNYE nor Tony are listed in the book (it turns out that directory > assistance has the listing for WNYE, but not for Tony). In Bell Canada territory, at least, organizations whose names are just a sequence of letters are alphabetized in the phone book as though each letter was a word. And the alphabetization is by words: spaces and punctuation except apostrophes which are ignored, sort together at the beginning of the alphabet. (There's an interesting exception which I will explain in a separate message.) However, *some* radio and TV stations also buy listings under their name as a single word. You can tell these are extra listings because they tend to list fewer extensions. So, for instance, CKEY is listed both in the CK's and as C K E Y, but CJCL is only given as C J C L. Of course, a person who looks up CJCL as CJCL will see CKEY nearby, and think that that is the right place in the book and that CJCL is unlisted. So my conjecture is that NYNEX follows a similar system and Roy looked under WNYE instead of W N Y E. Of course, it could be the other way around. > ... he's calling from Holland and is trying to reach 718-636-11238 ... > he's trying to reach Tony Herbert from radio station WNYE, who lives at > 349 St. John's Place. This is really spooky because I'm at 295 St. John's. > ... It's not until a couple of minutes later that I realize why the number > he had for me/Tony is so strange; with the extra '8' tacked on the end, > the last 5 digits become my zip code! The fact that Roy's and Tony's places are so close together is the key. It means that they probably share both a ZIP code and a telephone prefix! Anyone might, in transcribing an address, or even in reciting it over the phone, absentmindedly substitute one block of digits for another. The error is a sort of long-range spoonerism. For instance, "30 Edith Drive, Suite 201" -- a genuine address near my house in Toronto -- might be accidentally given as "201 Edith Drive, Suite 30", an address which, if it existed, would be only a few blocks away. Similarly, the person who wrote down or who dictated Tony's address and phone number must have substituted Tony's ZIP code for the last part of Tony's phone number. Perhaps if Roy had asked the caller he would have found out that the caller had Tony's address listed with a 4-digit ZIP code! Now it should be clear what happened. The part that's a strange coincidence is that Roy, who is in a position to tell us all this, has a phone number whose last 4 digits are the same as the first 4 digits of his ZIP code. If the number formed by the error had been that of Joe's Bar and Grill, the Telecom list/newsgroup would never have heard. > We both remark on how strange a coincidence it is that he got a wrong > number just a couple hundred yards away from his target trying to place a > transatlantic phone call ... This is not only strange but expected, once you understand the original error. Anyone from North America would recognize the "ill-formed phone number" before they finished dialing it, and would abort the call. Such a mistake would therefore be made only by someone from overseas! > ... and on how good the line is ... However, this part I have no explanation for at all. :-) Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com Professional Debugger of Wrong Numbers