That was that sound of call centers overloading as a thousand people just realized their number spells "WANKER"

I got JETT 3 star rated... How odd...

Mine comes up with the words below and shows that for all the M$ haters out there that xBox beats BMW any day of the week!

*XBOX**

*AMY**

*COX**

*BOY**

*BMW**

**BOX**

*BOYO*

*BOZO*

*WANY*

*ZANY**

* to denote numbers that didnt get turned int letters to at least try and put of casual mobile stalkers

.... 07666 666 666 between Jobs and Gates.

Paris cause there was no icon with the 2 devils in at the same time and she could probably squeeze 2 in (sorry not had enough coffee to get my mind out of the gutter yet).

I known someone in the US whose number was SEXMEUP

because there's no completely consistent mapping between letters and numbers (although mobiles seem better than landlines in this respect). So you might dial PLUMBER and get SEXMEUP (or, even worse, v.v.)

Does anyone have 07055 378008?

oddly I've never seen that issue apart from phones made pre early 90s. Since then all of the phones (landline or mobile) have had the same letter to keymap. (yes I do live in the UK)

"Pulls cash from the back of your drawers" - Yeah, I did that in public once, got put away for 6 weeks! No? Suit yourselves!

The Americans do it, which is reason enough. But the real reason is in front of your face; on your mobile the numbers descend from top-left. On a landphone they ascend from bottom left. Nobody knows why, because Mulder & Scully aren't on telly anymore.

The original design of the Subscriber Trunk Dialling system used letters for the dialling codes of various places:

"For example Aylesbury was given the STD code 0296, where the letter A can be found on the number 2 and the letter Y on the number 9. The letter O became a zero (except in placenames beginning with O), such as Bournemouth: 0202 - 20 = BO. However as more and more places were given STD codes this system became unworkable. The use of alphabetic exchange (area) codes was abandoned in the 1960s"

From http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/UK_telephone_numbering_plan

The problem was that not all rotary phone dials were standardised to use the same layout, for instance some put O, Q and Z on the Zero finger hole instead of their standard alphabetical places, which could cause confusion.

Also, of course, it was much more difficult to get "custom numbers" back in the days of the General Post Office who originally ran the phone system (and you didn't even *own* your phone, you only rented it from them!) or even in the early BT days before number portability, so trying to get a number that spelled "plumber" was virtually impossible.

seems to be missing a semi-colon :) slap the web adminz!

Line 28: if (Request.ServerVariables["SERVER_NAME"].ToLower().Contains("valueyournumber"))

Line 29: {

Line 30: string url = "http://www.numbuz.co.uk/index.aspx?vyn=1"

Line 31: Response.Redirect(url, true);

Line 32: }

Their web site currently says:

Server Error in '/' Application.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Compilation Error

Description: An error occurred during the compilation of a resource required to service this request. Please review the following specific error details and modify your source code appropriately.

Compiler Error Message: CS1002: ; expected

Source Error:

Line 28: if (Request.ServerVariables["SERVER_NAME"].ToLower().Contains("valueyournumber"))

Line 29: {

Line 30: string url = "http://www.numbuz.co.uk/index.aspx?vyn=1"

Line 31: Response.Redirect(url, true);

Line 32: }

Source File: e:\web\numbuzcom00\htdocs\Main.master.cs Line: 30

Cowboy programming on .NET? Surely not!

PS: screenshot of the error in full technicolor available on request.

If you've got 0's or 1's in your number then it doesn't quite work as well.

Given that if you found a number you liked, you could just call them up and buy it direct from them and save the 10% commission?

Paris - because she might have thought of the idea.

I remember those! In fact, I used to remember dozens and dozens of them.

WTF do I need them for now? We all have address books!

Which is a shame because I've had the same very memorable Virgin number since mid-90s which, numerically speaking, is a thing of elegance and beauty while saying it out loud is like singing a song.

Only 2-star on numbuz.com but hey, that's numberwang!

(grabs coat, gets out more)

"got your number" , how long before the spam texts arrive ???

I still use that trick to identify STD prefixes. It doesn't always work, because as you say, they ran out of workable ones, but there are some quite interesting obscure ones in the system.

Here in the states, phone numbers had a two-letter exchange prefix at one time, and those probably morphed into whole words out of marketing cuteness. I hate dialing (obsolete term, that) letters.

Surely merkins would dial 1-800-PLUMER on account of the fact that they can't spel dair way out of a wet papa bag?

What a bunch of 28687 and 9265377.

I'll get me 2628.

Ever tried letter dialing on one?