Post #2457741
2026-03-29 01:28 UTC
The practice of using the T9-letters to memorise a phone number is just not done much outside the USA
Replies (1)
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@Thunderbird4@lemmy.world 2026-03-29 12:45
Even referring to them as “T9-letters” is a massive neologism. Those letters have been on telephones going all the way back to the very first rotary phones when you were first allowed to dial a number yourself without talking to an operator. Before, you’d tell the operator you wanted “Wabash 3 - 1234” and they’d connect you to number 1234 on the Wabash 3 exchange. To dial that same number when the dial telephone came around, you would dial WA3-1234, or 923-1234. Here’s a great film from 1940 introducing people to the idea of dialing on a telephone and explaining how to use the letters: Internet Archive Link