What never works the way it’s supposed to?
Post your answer in the LEAVE A COMMENT section below. I’m not the boss of you, though. Don’t write anything for all I care! If you do it the way you’re supposed to, it’ll work.
. . .here are my thoughts.
What never works the way it’s supposed to?
Growing up, my telephone number—my mother’s home number to this day—ended in -0606. Obviously, those round symbols before each 6 are zeros. Despite this universal knowledge, it seems the majority of people say the letter O instead of zero. This O/zero substitution is so commonplace that it’s never questioned. Folks understand zero is intended and push the button on the bottom, middle row. This O/zero substitution actually makes sense since O has only one syllable while zero has two. The problem is, we use alpha-numeric keypads. The letters M, N, O are represented by the number 6. Without the alpha characters, we’d be denied amazing phone numbers such as 1-855-WTF-POPO. Telecommunications would never work the way they’re supposed to if every time someone said O, you were confused as to whether they meant zero or 6. Where might this impreciseness end and the real confusion begin? For example, we can save two syllables by saying all those toll-free 1-866-xxx-xxxx numbers as 1-TOM-xxx-xxxx. Truth be told, I grew up saying -0606 with the letter O. Due to decades of repetition, I’ve ingrained a habit that I still can’t break. Nobody’s perfect!