Welcome to 1995 Joe, part deux!

In a fit of trying to catch up with the rest of the world, I now have caller i.d.!! Yes, no more randomly picking up the phone with my usual, "Joe Sutton" statement. The funny thing is, I've had a phone capable of using caller i.d. for some time, I just never subscribed. The blame for my recent purchase falls squarely on the devil I call the "cell phone". The more I use that damn thing, the more convenient it becomes: text messages, caller i.d., constant communication. Ironically, those were all the things I hated about cell phones. Now I love them. Ugh.

It's a Learning Tueday and since the topic is phones, I lifted some interesting information out of the comic section of the Tribune a few weeks back. The comics page is the last true bastion of reliable journalism in my book. First, two easy questions: What two letters do not appear on older phone keypads? For you texters, this is not an easy quetion because the phone makers added the letters with the advent of cell phones and text messages. Second, what two digits do not have ANY letters associated with them? Also fairly easy.

Before I reveal the answers and the "why" behind them, you might need a little history. First, letters were originally added to the keypad to help people remember phone numbers. Back in the day, they, obviously, didn't have cell phones with memory chips that could remember the numbers dialed and such. So in order to help out the citizens, and paying customers mind you, they added the letters. For some reason, they figured seven digits were too many to remember, but they thought five digits was easy. So the phone company came up with "exchanges". I remember a commercial back in Detroit that used an exchange in it, but I'm not sure of the exact number any more.....it was something like KLondike3-2700....and there was a little tune that went with it. The exchanges actually consisted of the first three numbers, but used the first two letters of the word and then the first number; in this case 553.

That's all fine and dandy, but why were there no Q or Z on the keypad (the answer to the first question by the way)for decades? Well, zero was used to call the operator and one was used internally by the phone company, so they had eight numbers to work with and 26 letters in the alphabet. Putting three on a pad got you close with 24 letters, but two would have to be left off. The two least used letters in the alphabet? Q and Z. So there you go. Cell phones added Q to the 7 key though and Z has been added to the 9 key. Had the phone been invented in Greece, their alphabet would have fit just fine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet

The weather has turned decidely warmer here the last few days and most of the snow and ice have melted. My Bears are 11-2 and have clinched a first round bye in the playoffs. All is good.