17 January, 2004: Hanging on the telephone

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Lots of people have produced lists of words which are represented by the same list of numbers in the `T9' text input method on mobile phones. My favourite is the equivalence of `pint' and `riot', which often leads to me inciting civil disobedience:

Fancy a riot later?

Dave suggested the following slightly different question about T9:

What is the biggest change to a word you are typing which you can get by entering a single extra number?

For instance, suppose that you want to type `scorched'. After 6 keypresses your phone displays,

(726724) scorch

and then you press 3, and your phone displays

(7267243) rampage

and your reaction is, to quote Dave, `Holy fuck! Vodafone has something to answer for!' (Actually, T9 is AOL's `technology'. Whatever.)

Then you get over yourself and press 3 again, and you see,

(72672433) scorched

and all is right with the world, though arguably Vodafone still has something to answer for.... (Apart from the bit where you're sending text messages about scorched stuff. Whatever. Actually, this is a nice example because the button you press is the same every time.)

Measuring `biggest change' by the largest smallest number of changed letters, here are the top few:

Changes Shorter T9 Longer T9 Shorter word Longer word
68746538746538upholdtrinket
68672438672437unpaidtorches
67878877878873strutsrupture
67422537422533ribaldshacked
6726724372672437rampagescorcher
6726724372672433rampagescorched
67267247267243scorchrampage
67265337265333rankedscolded
66678746678745onrushnostril
6467446446744642gorginginsignia
62374382374387adriftcepheus
586722867225toscaunpack
584676846766thornvinson
578737738787377385supersetstressful
578675786759storkrumply
578675786753storkrumple
578625786253stockrumble
5783353778335377rufflessteelers
578333783333steedpuffed
57826887826886ruboutquantum
57666387666385sonnetroomful
576625766253smockronald
574784747845shrugpistil
57446867446863shintosigmund
574225742253shackribald
57372437372437repaidperches
57372437372433repaidperched
57367337367337sensedreorder
57366337366335pennedremodel
57274237274235scriberaphael

(Of course, these aren't from the real T9 dictionary, but just from the first word list that came to hand. So your phone may not behave exactly as suggested above. For instance, mine doesn't know `superset', but rather displays `stressfu' when you type 78737738. But you get the idea.)

Update: Matt remarks,

I want to make the point that any T9 word-equivalence list which omits ``Smirnoff'' and ``Poisoned'' (as in ``Get me a bottle of Poisoned Black Ice, would you?'') is incomplete.

Sadly, my phone's tiny mind is lacking a list of trademarks (and swear words). Oh well. Matt also points me to something he mentioned a while ago: this splendid report on British pub etiquette, from the Social Issues Research Center:

Research findings: We observed that, on average, `initiating' round-buyers (those who regularly buy the first round) spend no more money than `waiting' round-buyers (those who do not offer a round until later in the session). Yet `initiating' round-buyers are perceived as friendly and generous, and enjoy great popularity among other regulars, whereas `waiting' round-buyers are less well-liked, and often regarded as miserly. In fact, far from being out-of-pocket, `initiating' round-buyers end up materially better off than `waiting' round-buyers, because their reputation for generosity means that others are inclined to be generous towards them.

-- that's the sort of research I like to see....


Copyright (c) 2004 Chris Lightfoot; available under a Creative Commons License.