On a telephone, why does ABC start on the number 2 and not 1?!
Question: I found this explanation on answerbag.com
by Persky Bunkermeister on Aug 14, 2006 at 6:58 pm
In the early days of the Canadian and American unified telephone numbering system, the three digit prefix had a word associated with it. For example my phone number could be YORK 9374. That would be dialed YOR-9374. The 1 digit had no alphabet letters assigned to it, because in those days, the prefix could not have a 1 in it. The thinking was that a phone number would be easier to remember if it combined a word and a number, also, in those days, the prefix word indicated the neighborhood the phone number was in.
I recall my childhood phone prefix as Orchard (dialed OR then the number).
Hope this helps.
Answers: I found this explanation on answerbag.com
by Persky Bunkermeister on Aug 14, 2006 at 6:58 pm
In the early days of the Canadian and American unified telephone numbering system, the three digit prefix had a word associated with it. For example my phone number could be YORK 9374. That would be dialed YOR-9374. The 1 digit had no alphabet letters assigned to it, because in those days, the prefix could not have a 1 in it. The thinking was that a phone number would be easier to remember if it combined a word and a number, also, in those days, the prefix word indicated the neighborhood the phone number was in.
I recall my childhood phone prefix as Orchard (dialed OR then the number).
Hope this helps.
Because ABC in Chicago is usually channel #2...
I don't know. It might be because 1 was used to dial another number.
Telephone numbers used to consist of an exchange name, such as Pennsylvania, plus some numbers, such as 65000. When the telephone system converted to dial, in the example above, you'd just dial PE65000.
To make that possible, all the letters were put on the number keys along with the letters. No letters were put on the number 1, because that number was reserved for accessing a different area code, which is still true today.