tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post2779589025281563322..comments2024-03-28T07:47:45.855+00:00Comments on Separated by a Common Language: doublelynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-26136566023722981062019-07-25T23:11:20.566+01:002019-07-25T23:11:20.566+01:00From the US here - I've actually had a lot of ...From the US here - I've actually had a lot of success reading numbers back to US citizens over phone by breaking the usual pattern - <br />from (585)-234-1234 to 58 52 34 12 34, read as two digit numbers: fifty-eight, fifty-two thirty-four twelve thirty four. Generally that's only as part of a confirmation after the original pattern has been given.Keithnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-20446259486969355252013-05-30T19:28:15.700+01:002013-05-30T19:28:15.700+01:00Many years late, but as Lynne has just brought thi...Many years late, but as Lynne has just brought this post up again:<br /><br />In Belgian French (and note that not all francophone Belgians are Walloons) 70 is septante and 90 is nonante; these are used in all registers (my son's birth certificates says he wa born in "mille neuf cent nonante huit". Octante or huitante are not used as they are in Switzerland. Telephone numbers are generally read out in pairs as in France, with leading triplets where there's an odd number of digits, and split on the dialling code/number boundary (so patterns are either 2/3-2-2 in the cities and 3/2-2-2 in the sticks, and 2-2/2-2-2 for mobiles), thus <i>zéro deux, deux-cents-nonante-neuf, onze onze</i> should get you the European Commission offices in Brussels. Belgian Dutch appears to follow the same patterns, which is more disconcerting since the spoken forms of two-digit numbers put the digits in the reverse order of what you have to dial (cf. "one and twenty"), so <i>nul twee, tweehonderd eenentachtig, eenenzestig elf</i> should get you 02/281.61.11 for the Council switchboard but if you're transcribing it it sounds like "oh two, two hundred one and eighty, one and sixty, eleven". <br /><br />Back in the UK, I think I only use "double" when it is the leading or final pair of a quartet of the final pair of a triad. My childhood phone number was 3446 which was always "three four four six" (which also led to some problems with learning to count for me and all my siblings...). Round numbers and numbers with another significance have largely been reserved for business use at a premium cost, and they may be spoken as exceptional forms if familiar from elsewhere (e.g. XXX 1066 is very likely to be "... ten sixty-six" and be the number for "Hastings Taxis" anywhere other than Hastings). <br /><br />Roger Hughesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-18816117157163828762009-12-29T16:46:20.903+00:002009-12-29T16:46:20.903+00:00AmE here. I've just realized that I've hea...AmE here. I've just realized that I've heard advertisements with the zip code nine double-oh seven eight and never thought twice about it. Probably would repeat it the same way if asked. However, my former zip code was always oh eight oh oh two. I don't know whether this is a California vs NJ thing, personal preference, or that the double oh occurs in a different part of the zip code, or that there is another oh at the beginning.<br /><br />I would never use doubles in phone numbers and don't remember ever hearing such. I would use hundred or thousand in phone numbers if the zeros occur at the end of a group (zip code, exchange, or last four digits). I think I might still group the last four digits into pairs of two (fifty-two seventy) sometimes as a left over of how it was done in Russia.<br /><br />I have no problem with using doubles when spelling out words (except double-u of course), but I don't say triple-double-u in web addresses.Boris Zakharinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16560756640621720539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-16121560768514013852007-04-04T08:53:00.000+01:002007-04-04T08:53:00.000+01:00AmE here, and I agree with Andyman- my phone numbe...AmE here, and I agree with Andyman- my phone number does not have letters in it, so it's "zero" instead of "oh". Also, especially at the beginning of a number sequence, using "oh" to mean zero can sometimes sound like one is using "oh" as an interjectory word, not a number, as in, "oh, it's just yada yada yada..." Then by the time you realize that "oh" was actually the first number in the sequence, you've missed the next few numbers and have to ask the person to please repeat him-/her-self.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-81223287671571114352007-01-22T23:29:00.000+00:002007-01-22T23:29:00.000+00:00Someone gave me their number tonight with triple o...Someone gave me their number tonight with <I>triple one</I> in it. The <I>treble/triple</I> thing is definitely individual--I wouldn't be surprised if there are age-related divisions, with <i>treble</i> being older, though the <I>triple</i> sayer tonight was no spring chicken. (I.e. older than me!)lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-10646254351054617432007-01-22T21:50:00.000+00:002007-01-22T21:50:00.000+00:00It's amazing how times have changed. I grew up (i...It's amazing how times have changed. I grew up (in the late 70s) saying 'nought' for what people now say as zero or 'oh'. I'm looked upon as somewhat quaint, I think! However, everyone seems to understand me.<br /><br />I'm with the double/triple/treble brigade for numbers. But if there were four of a numeral, I'd be more likely to say 'double four double four' than quadruple.<br /><br />However, when it comes to the emergency number in NZ, it's always said 'one one one', not 'triple one'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-36243180962679031982007-01-22T19:29:00.000+00:002007-01-22T19:29:00.000+00:00No one has mentioned that in (BrE) one would say "...No one has mentioned that in (BrE) one would say "call me ON nnn-nnn" whereas in (AmE) one would say "call me AT nnn-nnnn" I'm an American living in England and quite commonly hear a string of three numbers stated as "treble" n.Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05831157103891691299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-46603361692274743492007-01-19T14:28:00.000+00:002007-01-19T14:28:00.000+00:00This is interesting. I haven't seen anyone make a...This is interesting. I haven't seen anyone make a suggestion of saying "naught" instead of "oh" or "zero." I'm sure I've heard my British husband and/or in-laws using this in numeric expressions.<br /><br />This also made me realize something curious about how I express numbers. I would never read 8853 in a phone number or credit card number as "eighty-eight fifty-three" but would instantly do so if it were an address. I can only assume that it is my personal foible, since I've certainly heard other Americans express it differently.cassandrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15430382213319953772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-21720825649007545762007-01-18T23:15:00.000+00:002007-01-18T23:15:00.000+00:00Austrlia's emergency number is 000, and is always ...Austrlia's emergency number is 000, and is always (in my experience at least) referred to as "triple-oh" or "triple-zero", never "zero-zero-zero" or "oh-oh-oh" (which to me sounds less like an emergency and more like a pop lyric which should be followed by "baaaaaybeee").Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-14841823899741701822007-01-17T18:42:00.000+00:002007-01-17T18:42:00.000+00:00In America, at least the parts I've lived in, ther...In America, at least the parts I've lived in, there's a difference between conventions regarding saying phone numbers vs. addresses. My address growing up was 1404, and that was fourteen-oh-four. It would never have occurred to anyone to say one-four-zero-four. I think it's because there was a 14th street, the cross-street, nearby. That was in North Carolina. But in San Francisco, I lived at three-eighty, fifteen-eleven, ten-seventy-one, twelve-twenty-three, and five-seventy-nine, among other addresses. There were no Third, Fifteenth, Tenth, etc., streets nearby. I don't know about Belgium, but in France, phone numbers are always read out as pairs of numbers, such as zéro-deux, cinquante-cinq, soixante, zéro-zéro, dix-sept.Ken Broadhursthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04430899802705818716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-69535187471228400762007-01-17T00:00:00.000+00:002007-01-17T00:00:00.000+00:00Talking of doubled letters, I used to work with so...Talking of doubled letters, I used to work with someone whose surname was Attwood. The spelling? A double-tee, double-u double-oh dee.<br /><br />And please put down a vote for 'triple' rather than 'treble'; a geographical thing maybe?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-34446498468154573592007-01-16T23:10:00.000+00:002007-01-16T23:10:00.000+00:00I have to concur with Lazygal. The number of my ol...I have to concur with Lazygal. The number of my old house was 11919 -- five places but only two digits. I always had to repeat "one-one-nine-one-nine". I discovered that people could more readily accept "eleven-nine-nineteen". I think part of it has to do with man's ability to remember numbers. The more numbers you're given, the more likely you are to forget one of them. So with a string of, say, seven digits, it's often easier to remember that as four numbers (grouped in whatever way seems most useful) instead of as seven individual numbers.<br /><br />As for doubling, would BrE speakers ever ever refer to, say, 41419 as "double-forty-one nine," or is doubling and tripling (or trebling) reserved for single digits?<br /><br />And I'm on the other side of the fence than Rebecca. I hate it when people say "oh" instead of "zero." "Oh" is a letter, not a number, and there are no letters in my phone number.Andy Hollandbeckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11005908016945472261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-75262363130747458772007-01-15T21:10:00.000+00:002007-01-15T21:10:00.000+00:00Interesting to hear so many people fall in the Bri...Interesting to hear so many people fall in the British or American pattern.<br /><br />Coming from India where we follow the Queen's English, now suitably evolved in to a rich dialect called Hinglish, I would use the traditional British pattern of "double eight five three" when in India.<br /><br />However, here in the US, I often say "thirteen thirty-three" (1333) for my apartment (I mean "flat") number. However, I've often have had to spell it out to "one three three three" on the phone. <br /><br />Result of offshoring call centers, no doubt?<br /><br />Cheers!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-52515733692675851262007-01-15T20:57:00.000+00:002007-01-15T20:57:00.000+00:00No idea how local this is, but:
(nine*) four eigh...No idea how local this is, but:<br /><br /><i>(nine*) four eight one, double one, double one, pizza hut delivery.</i><br /><br />*The extra digit was added later, this jingle appears not to have been prosodically affected.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-65898225562110244452007-01-15T11:05:00.000+00:002007-01-15T11:05:00.000+00:00This US English speaker would say "0800 1111" as "...This US English speaker would say "0800 1111" as "oh eight hundred ... one one one one".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-80929200283923845792007-01-15T11:01:00.000+00:002007-01-15T11:01:00.000+00:00In my original post, I may have exaggerated the am...In my original post, I may have exaggerated the amount of problem the "double" causes for me. And like other AmE posters I do sometimes use "double" notation myself (as in the example of ZIP codes mentioned by a couple of comments above). <br /><br />But sometimes other people have problems understanding me when I don't use "double" as they might expect. Take my phone number, 020 8800 #### (I use this notation as a Londoner: the last 8 digits can stand on their own as a local number for all of London). The extra 8 often gets swallowed up if I don't call it "double". So I get to the end of the number, but the person I'm talking to is expecting one more digit. <br /><br />I tend to use "oh" much more often than "zero" when I recite numbers, unless someone is having trouble understanding me (quite often the case due to a combination of my accent and bad telephone manner). I also use "hundred" or "thousand" when zeros occur at the end of a numeric unit (say a 4-digit block of digits in a credit card number, or a telephone number chunk like US (###)###-####). Which sometimes causes trouble if my idea of unit doesn't correspond with someone else's, like UK mobiles which follow the format 07 #########, but it's anybody's guess how the remaining nine digits will be clustered (it appears that the industry standard is 07### ### ###, but my experience is all over the place). <br /><br />lynneguist wrote <i>Reading 8853 as eighty-eight fifty-three is another thing that is largely personal, though I think one hears it more in the US.</i><br /><br />I tend to agree. I was mostly cured of this habit by spending a year in the Netherlands. In Dutch, the ones digit is uttered before the tens digit (e.g. "three-and-fifty" for 53). And phone numbers are usually listed (as I vaguely recall) in a format that encourages this kind of clustering, like (0)24 ## ## ###. No one ever got my number right.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-80897220476391746752007-01-15T10:17:00.000+00:002007-01-15T10:17:00.000+00:00Just remembered the decades-old advertising jingle...Just remembered the decades-old advertising jingle for <a href=http://www.childline.org.uk>ChildLine</a>, which read the number (0800 1111) as "Oh-eight-hundred, double-one, double-one". How would that read in AmE?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-90513610913727421372007-01-15T10:02:00.000+00:002007-01-15T10:02:00.000+00:00For me (BrE), I use "double" frequently (my [BrE] ...For me (BrE), I use "double" frequently (my [BrE] mobile / [AmE] cell phone contains two sets), and I have no problem with cognitive problem with people saying triple/treble/quadruple. However, what really throws me is the use of "hundred" or "thousand". I can just about cope with it at the end of a number, but anywhere else just makes no sense to me.<br /><br />Years ago, my phone number (excluding the dialling code, which I would never call an area code) was 50062. To me, this was always "five-double-oh-six-two". Once or twice, though, I heard people say it as "five-hundred-sixty-two", which to me would make it simply 562 (and I would imagine this would be all the more so for an AmE listener, given that it's much more common in AmE to leave out "and" in a number like that).<br /><br />By the way, "oh" rather than "zero" most of the time, though I will sometimes use zero on a crackly phone line as "oh" can be misheard as "eight".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-80966724709304824302007-01-15T07:40:00.000+00:002007-01-15T07:40:00.000+00:00Back to letters, I've reali{s/z}ed that, despite m...Back to letters, I've reali{s/z}ed that, despite my comment about <I>double-u</I>, I have come to use <I>double</I> in spelling my name: <I>ell-why-double-en-ee</I>. Not something I did before coming to Britain.lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-732272193558818372007-01-15T01:37:00.000+00:002007-01-15T01:37:00.000+00:00Local phone numbers in the UK nowadays vary betwee...Local phone numbers in the UK nowadays vary between five and eight numbers, (six being most common) with the area code expanding the whole number, including the initial 'oh', to eleven. However when we got our first phone some 30 years ago, I seem to recall that the number was 08243 314 ("oh eight two four three, three one four" with a breath between the exchange code and the local number).<br /><br />Nowadays, my office number is "five hundred, four hundred", and my home number is "five hundred, nine five nine".<br /><br />Incidentally, when spelling internet URLs in Welsh, it's normal to begin with "oo-driplyg" (triple-w).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-56281651160147947282007-01-14T14:41:00.000+00:002007-01-14T14:41:00.000+00:00When I lived in Geneva I said "octante" and "nonan...When I lived in Geneva I said "octante" and "nonante"...Lazygalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12008100108035617927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-35980835533335583852007-01-14T13:09:00.000+00:002007-01-14T13:09:00.000+00:00english phones numbers come in very cohesive sets ...english phones numbers come in very cohesive sets in my opinion. the first five digits are the area code (i've never heard it called a dialling code), the first set of three narrows it down to a few streets, or in my case a small village - all the numbers in my home village begin 01*** 860. followed by the final three digits which give you the specific house you're ringing. since my home phone number contains a double digit i feel qualified to say that i've always given it as X double Y and have never heard any confusion.<br />an interesting source for this may be tv or radio shows which give out a number to call or text answers, comments or questions to. i wonder if there's a pattern to be found there?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-70310568081130019582007-01-14T13:07:00.000+00:002007-01-14T13:07:00.000+00:00Don't Walloons say "nonante" rather than "quatre-v...Don't Walloons say "nonante" rather than "quatre-vingt dix"? Do Walloons and Frogs say telephone numbers differently? Do Wallons and Flems?deariemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06654632450454559188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-90041649629975318232007-01-14T12:08:00.000+00:002007-01-14T12:08:00.000+00:00Our phone number at work is A111BC (numbers substi...Our phone number at work is A111BC (numbers substituted, obvs) and whenever I say it as 'A treble one B C', people get confused and think I've only given them five digits instead of 6. It annoys me when people say 'zero' not 'oh', I don't know why!<br /><br />Your comment further up about London numbers reminded me of Leeds numbers. The area code is 0113 (like other big cities like Manchester or Sheffield or Nottingham [you can tell I'm a Northerner]) but there is nowhere currently in Leeds with any number after the 3 than '2'. So the area code might as well be 01132, and many people give it as such. Similarly, the Newcastle code is 0191 but all Durham numbers start 0191 3 - but that's only helpful if you actually know that 0191 3 equals Durham, of course. <br /><br />The issue about French-speakers giving number is sets of two recalls the horror of French listening exercises when we would desperately try to pick up several garbled numbers!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-40937468418234565302007-01-14T07:08:00.000+00:002007-01-14T07:08:00.000+00:00The reason, if anyone cares, why North American te...The reason, if anyone cares, why North American telephone numbers are fixed-length and British ones are not is the premature superiority of now-obsolete U.S. telephone switch hardware. In the beginning, all hardware was step-by-step: each newly dialed digit caused the caller to be connected to a new group of possible subscribers, until the final digit determined the precise line being called. How long the telephone number was depended on how many steppers were in use, and it did not have to be in any way consistent: 3 could be a number and so could 40-49.<br /><br />The U.S. long ago abandoned this system in favor of crossbar switches, which process all the digits simultaneously. Unfortunately, a crossbar switch <i>knows</i>, in a physical sense, how many digits there are in the calling number, viz. seven. (The addition of three-digit area codes did not affect this, because in a given central office all calling numbers shared the same area code; only with the advent of computer-controlled telephone switches was it possible to have multiple area codes in the same location.)<br /><br />Britain never went through the crossbar stage, going for the most part straight from step-by-step to electronic switching. Therefore, the original variable-length numbers never had to be eliminated as they were in the U.S.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.com