Dial 686-2377 for NUMBERS

By RD.

Five numerals and a prefix was hard enough. Seven numerals was clearly pushing it. With the addition of three more digits--for area code --phone numbers became endless strings of digits, impossible for all but the strong-minded to remember. Was there a way to give them shape, meaning, character? What about referring to the dial and decoding the digits back into letter form--changing telephone numbers into telephone names? That way, 255-7465 made ALL PINK, 744-7226 the even more colorful PIGS CAN. The telephonetics game was slow in starting, but today it is only the phone company that won't play.

San Franciscans dial POPCORN to get the correct time, and LOST DOG for the S.P.C.A. reports. In Berkeley, THE MOST reaches Giovanni's Pizza Parlor, and in Chicago, CARPETS connects a caller with the Walton Carpet Co. To reach the Houston Post's classified department, patrons are advised to dial WANT ADS. In Dade County, Fla., the telephone name of a mortgage company is FREEDOM. A Pontiac auto dealer in Los Angeles is available at GO GO FUN, the Suicide Prevention Office at HELP NOW; and most startling of all, for a recorded sermon from Hollywood's First Methodist Church, interested parties simply dial GOD DAMN. (MONKEYS, which used to connect callers with the Los Angeles Zoo, has recently been disconnected.)

Dedicated Telephoneticist. There is, of course, a margin of error connected with the game, specifically in the possible confusion between 1's and 7's, O's and O's. Dialing a wrong telephone name may also bring on an operator asking: "What number did you dial, please?" Instead of trying to explain, it is usually far easier to hang up and call again. None of this deters a dedicated telephoneticist like Los Angeles Mathematician Angela Dunn, who has created words out of most of her friends' numbers. A pharmacist and his wife for whom she invented GRADLUP were so pleased that they now regularly serve a drink they have christened the Gradlup (vermouth and Scotch). San Francisco Producer-Director Alan Myerson, whose old Los Angeles phone was named GOLLYGO, always answered it by saying "gollygo" instead of "hello." Other Los Angeles phone names under which Myerson was once listed: HOLY PIG and ON A SONG.

Some fans of the game carry it one step further. Author Don Mankiewicz, for example, played it the easy way for years with I DECIDE for an office number, UP STICK for home. But he changed offices last fall, and today acquaintances who want to get in touch with him are told to dial the answer to the question "What do you use to blast your way through the ice, Amundsen?" Those still interested in making the call can reach him at TNT BYRD.

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