As you know, we love words and everything that is connected to this topic. A quite interesting word trivia we recently came across is the linking of numbers and words resulting in so-called Phonewords. They are often used for advertising reasons but are quite fun even for you at home to remember different numerical sequences. Check this article to find out if your phone number is a phoneword.
What is a Phoneword?
A Phoneword is simply a phone number that spells a word by using the letters on your telephone keypad. These letters can be used to form an ‘easy to remember’ word which can then be dialed as a telephone number. It is often used by companies who want their customers to remember their number quite quick to stay ahead of the competition. Companies that sell those numbers often promote their service with: Be a name, not a number.
How do I create a Phoneword?
North American Standard Keypad
| 2 = A B C | 4 = G H I | 6 = M N O | 8 = T U V |
| 3 = D E F | 5 = J K L | 7 = P Q R S | 9 = W X Y Z |
Above you see the letter allocation on a North American Standard Keypad. To create a Phoneword just replace a digit with a suitable letter of the three or four letters corresponding to that number. As an example, 13 CABS is the Phone Word equivalent to the number 13 2227. Businesses that already use Phonewords are for example: 1300 QANTAS, 13 MIDAS, 13 SALVOS and 1800 REVERSE.
Unfortunately, in times of smartphones and tablets it is hard to spell a Phoneword since some devices only show numbers without letters. To dial a Phoneword you have two options: use your mobile internet browser to google a North American Standard Keypad or decide for a more old-fashioned way and use your corded telephone as a cross-reference. Some smartphones have an app for an alphanumeric keypad for normal dialing. Depending on your smartphone’s software there will be small variations of when to use the “Alt” key, play around to get to know your phone. Take the UK number 0778 2435732 as an example. Your phone will display the number that you have just dialed as 0778chelsea. Sometimes it displays something different when dialing. Eventually, your phone will display the number that you have just dialled as 0778chelsea in your log after you have called.
Phonewords – Is your phone number a phoneword?
If we have drawn your interest in Phonewords and you are curious to find out if your phone number creates a word as well there are thousands of phonewords websites on the internet to find out. You can enter a full phone number and see what words and phrases it spells. It is also possible to enter the start of a phone number and see what words start with those digits. Do it vise versa and enter some letters to see the corresponding number. Maybe this will help you picking a new mobile or landline number when changing it. There are even apps that convert phone numbers to words.
Enjoy finding out what your phone number spells!
I found http://spellmynumber.mnim.org to be one of the most powerful phoneword websites. It supports conversion of phone numbers up to 20 digits to as much as four languages (English, French, Spanish, German).
thank you for your suggestion. I tested the German version and didn’t get any useful results after trying a lot of numbers. Which word lists are you using or how does your algorithm filter bad combinations?
Anyway, nice interface though.
There is also an Android app that does this. It can be downloaded from Google’s play store. It’s called “NameMyNumber”. I believe it has a German dictionary too.
Nice app… Maybe, we’ll write a short review of it…
Most smartphones allow you to dial a phoneword easily. In Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets, the dialing screen is like the standard dialpad showing abc next to 2, etc.
When you are texting, you can enter the message recipient with letters (e.g. 1800flowers). The device not only accepts the number, it even displays its equivalent number under it. You will only need to tap over the number to get it inside the recipients box.
Apple devices (iPhones and iPads) accept phonewords as sms recipients without showing their numerical equivalent. You can also block and copy the phoneword in the texting environment and then paste it in the dialing environment to call the number.
In LG Nexus phones, you can change the dialing pad into a qwerty form and dial phonewords directly.
Thank you, Amir, for the useful information.