A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

etc

Theo

"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are the
chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were longer than
a couple of digits, they did some research and found that people could
remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a 4-digit chunk was harder to
remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits (one-two-seven
[pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries assign tens-and-units
significance to pairs of digits (twelve [pause] seventy-three [pause]
forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal of tens
and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy) but you write down
73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both numbers in
the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed one German writing
down the digits in the order that he heard them: first the units, then the
tens digit to the left of it; skip three spaces forwards for next unit and
back one for tens. This three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to
be very cumbersome.


French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation for 80:
quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers make a very
exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity, whereas almost no
pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such as vignt-huit trente-quatre
(28 34).

On 13:50 14 May 2021, NY said:
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela
wrote:


A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your
ID. Do you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or
123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using
to remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are
the chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were
longer than a couple of digits, they did some research and found
that people could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a
4-digit chunk was harder to remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits
(one-two-seven [pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries
assign tens-and-units significance to pairs of digits (twelve
[pause] seventy-three [pause] forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal
of tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy)
but you write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both
numbers in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed
one German writing down the digits in the order that he heard them:
first the units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip three
spaces forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very
cumbersome.

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation
for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity,
whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such
as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

I notice on the continent people often quote the digits of a phone
number in pairs, whereas the UK tends to quote a number in groups of
three digits.

I originally put it down to how their phone company laid out the
digits but I think it's more widespread than that.

Personally, I kind of visualise and alomst recognise the SIGHT of
digit-pairs but I remember digit-triplets mainly by their SOUND.

On Fri, 14 May 2021 13:16:06 +0100, Pamela wrote:

A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

I don't tend to memorise.
Read it off the phone in bits, then read it back to check against the
phone.
Not like having it read out to you to memorise.

I find that I memorise phone numbers long term as 5 digits then 6 digits.

Cheers


Dave R


--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 7 Pro x64

--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

On 14/05/2021 13:16, Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

worse when they sent an internet link to click on to my non android
nokia 1100

On 14/05/2021 14:03, Pamela wrote:
On 13:50 14 May 2021, NY said:
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela
wrote:


A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your
ID. Do you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or
123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using
to remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are
the chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were
longer than a couple of digits, they did some research and found
that people could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a
4-digit chunk was harder to remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits
(one-two-seven [pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries
assign tens-and-units significance to pairs of digits (twelve
[pause] seventy-three [pause] forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal
of tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy)
but you write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both
numbers in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed
one German writing down the digits in the order that he heard them:
first the units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip three
spaces forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very
cumbersome.

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation
for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity,
whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such
as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

I notice on the continent people often quote the digits of a phone
number in pairs, whereas the UK tends to quote a number in groups of
three digits.

germans quote number pairs backwards, "five and twenty (blackbirds)"
while we would say twenty-five.

On 14/05/2021 13:16, Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.


Bank card Pin numbers are 4 digits because that is all that most people
can manage to remember.

just write it down somewhere that only you can access, or split
it into 3 groups of 2 digits and try and convert them into the
ascii equivalent which, it you are lucky, might give you a 3-character
code which is easier to remember.

"Andrew" wrote in message
...
On 13:50 14 May 2021, NY said:
German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal
of tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy)
but you write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both
numbers in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed
one German writing down the digits in the order that he heard them:
first the units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip three
spaces forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very
cumbersome.

germans quote number pairs backwards, "five and twenty (blackbirds)"
while we would say twenty-five.

That's what I was referring to above.

On 14/05/2021 14:03, Pamela wrote:
On 13:50 14 May 2021, NY said:
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela
wrote:


A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your
ID. Do you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or
123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using
to remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are
the chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were
longer than a couple of digits, they did some research and found
that people could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a
4-digit chunk was harder to remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits
(one-two-seven [pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries
assign tens-and-units significance to pairs of digits (twelve
[pause] seventy-three [pause] forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal
of tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy)
but you write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both
numbers in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed
one German writing down the digits in the order that he heard them:
first the units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip three
spaces forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very
cumbersome.

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation
for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity,
whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such
as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

I notice on the continent people often quote the digits of a phone
number in pairs, whereas the UK tends to quote a number in groups of
three digits.

I originally put it down to how their phone company laid out the
digits but I think it's more widespread than that.

Personally, I kind of visualise and alomst recognise the SIGHT of
digit-pairs but I remember digit-triplets mainly by their SOUND.


As already said, it may be structurally easier to work in digit pairs or
triplets - or a mixture.

Surely the only rule is that it is discourteous to confirm back a number
NOT in the format first spoken. E.g. 23 93 73 confirmed back as 239 373 !

PA

"Peter Able" wrote in message
...
I notice on the continent people often quote the digits of a phone
number in pairs, whereas the UK tends to quote a number in groups of
three digits.

I originally put it down to how their phone company laid out the
digits but I think it's more widespread than that.

Personally, I kind of visualise and alomst recognise the SIGHT of
digit-pairs but I remember digit-triplets mainly by their SOUND.

That sounds a bit synaethesic. I'm not sure I've ever been aware that I've
remembered a phone number by what the groups of digits sound like. I imagine
the sight of the digits on the page. But everyone has their own method of
remembering things, and no method is better or worse than another, as long
as it works and is quick to encode/decode. I understand that a way of
remembering a sequence of objects so you can replay them in the right order
is to devise a "story" in which all the objects appear. But when I've tried
it, it takes me so long to encode them into the story and then to decode
them later on, that it doesn't work for me.

As already said, it may be structurally easier to work in digit pairs or
triplets - or a mixture.

Surely the only rule is that it is discourteous to confirm back a number
NOT in the format first spoken. E.g. 23 93 73 confirmed back as 239 373
!

I'm rather malicious. If someone quotes a phone number to me in groups of
two, especially if those groups are given tens-and-units significance
("twenty-three forty-five" as opposed to "two three [pause] four five" I
tend to read it back as digits in groups of three, because that's what I was
*expecting* to hear.

Peter Able wrote:
On 14/05/2021 14:03, Pamela wrote:
On 13:50 14 May 2021, NY said:
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela
wrote:


A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your
ID. Do you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or
123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using
to remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are
the chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were
longer than a couple of digits, they did some research and found
that people could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a
4-digit chunk was harder to remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits
(one-two-seven [pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries
assign tens-and-units significance to pairs of digits (twelve
[pause] seventy-three [pause] forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal
of tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy)
but you write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both
numbers in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed
one German writing down the digits in the order that he heard them:
first the units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip three
spaces forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very
cumbersome.

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation
for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity,
whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such
as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

I notice on the continent people often quote the digits of a phone
number in pairs, whereas the UK tends to quote a number in groups of
three digits.

I originally put it down to how their phone company laid out the
digits but I think it's more widespread than that.

Personally, I kind of visualise and alomst recognise the SIGHT of
digit-pairs but I remember digit-triplets mainly by their SOUND.


As already said, it may be structurally easier to work in digit pairs or
triplets - or a mixture.

Surely the only rule is that it is discourteous to confirm back a number
NOT in the format first spoken. E.g. 23 93 73 confirmed back as 239 373 !

I actually do that intentionally both for myself and with others. It's a
good check that a digit hasn't been misplaced or accidentally inverted e.g.
forty two (40 2) vs forty-two (42).

Pamela wrote:
On 13:50 14 May 2021, NY said:
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela
wrote:


A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your
ID. Do you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or
123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using
to remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are
the chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were
longer than a couple of digits, they did some research and found
that people could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a
4-digit chunk was harder to remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits
(one-two-seven [pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries
assign tens-and-units significance to pairs of digits (twelve
[pause] seventy-three [pause] forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal
of tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy)
but you write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both
numbers in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed
one German writing down the digits in the order that he heard them:
first the units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip three
spaces forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very
cumbersome.

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation
for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity,
whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such
as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

I notice on the continent people often quote the digits of a phone
number in pairs, whereas the UK tends to quote a number in groups of
three digits.

I think it's because they read the two digits as single numbers: 15 56 45
is fifteen fifty-six forty-five. Whereas we read them as single digits
regardless of how we mentally group them: one five five six four five.

I originally put it down to how their phone company laid out the
digits but I think it's more widespread than that.

Personally, I kind of visualise and alomst recognise the SIGHT of
digit-pairs but I remember digit-triplets mainly by their SOUND.

Do you remember them as three digit numbers (one hundred and twenty-three)
or triple digits (one two three)?

NY wrote:



French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation for 80:
quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers make a very
exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity, whereas almost no
pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such as vignt-huit trente-quatre
(28 34).

The pause is almost imperceptible, but it is there. It helps in france that
all phone numbers are 10 digits long so any mistranscription is obvious.
Whereas in the UK it's not always obvious if you've dropped or gained a
digit.

On 14/05/2021 13:16, Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

Usually, groups of three and four. Phone numbers I do differently,
depending on what country they're for.

Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

This is all that's left of PI.

314 159 26535 89793 23846 264 3383 279 502 69399 37510
^ ^
+--- missing here ? +--- keeps flipping

That's to demonstrate just how variable chunking can be,
in a memory task.

Paul

In uk.d-i-y Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

I have a virtual mobile number for these, so they arrive in my E-Mail
and can be cut+paste to their destination. No memory required! :-)

--
Chris Green
·

On 14/05/2021 13:16, Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?


Depends what goldfish tendencies ye have.

You only have to "remember" it for a second, and if that's difficult you
can bring up the SMS thingy on ya phone.

On an iPhone, the recently received number from SMS is a shortcut on the
keyboard.

--
Adrian C

On 14:58 14 May 2021, Peter Able said:


Surely the only rule is that it is discourteous to confirm back a
number NOT in the format first spoken. E.g. 23 93 73 confirmed
back as 239 373 !

It may seem so but digit grouping that's easier to recall (which is
what some people like to emphasise) is not the same as conventional
digit grouping when you want to confirm you've understood a number.

For example, Three Mobile customer service is: 0 33333 8 1001

That may be handy to remember after you have heard it enough times but
for a simple one-off confirmation it's messy because it breaks the
usual rhythm when speaking such numbers.

Nor can you easily confirm it fits the usual landline format of 5+6
digits.

I prefer: 03333 381 001.

On 15:47 14 May 2021, Chris said:

Pamela wrote:
On 13:50 14 May 2021, NY said:
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela
wrote:


A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your
ID. Do you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or
123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using
to remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those
are the chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were
longer than a couple of digits, they did some research and found
that people could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a
4-digit chunk was harder to remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits
(one-two-seven [pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries
assign tens-and-units significance to pairs of digits (twelve
[pause] seventy-three [pause] forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds"
reversal of tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and
seventy) but you write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both
numbers in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed
one German writing down the digits in the order that he heard
them: first the units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip
three spaces forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very
cumbersome.

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts
notation for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid
ambiguity, whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous
pairs such as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

I notice on the continent people often quote the digits of a phone
number in pairs, whereas the UK tends to quote a number in groups
of three digits.

I think it's because they read the two digits as single numbers: 15
56 45 is fifteen fifty-six forty-five. Whereas we read them as
single digits regardless of how we mentally group them: one five
five six four five.

I originally put it down to how their phone company laid out the
digits but I think it's more widespread than that.

Personally, I kind of visualise and alomst recognise the SIGHT of
digit-pairs but I remember digit-triplets mainly by their SOUND.

Do you remember them as three digit numbers (one hundred and
twenty-three) or triple digits (one two three)?

I don't register them as two specific three digit numbers.

I hear the digits when spoken and then recall the sound of their names
all run together ("sixfivethree") without registering the group as a
specific number.

On 15:53 14 May 2021, Chris said:

NY wrote:



French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts
notation for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid
ambiguity, whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous
pairs such as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

The pause is almost imperceptible, but it is there. It helps in
france that all phone numbers are 10 digits long so any
mistranscription is obvious. Whereas in the UK it's not always
obvious if you've dropped or gained a digit.

If I confirm any 10 digit number (phone number or otherwise) I would
divide it into groups of 2 or 4 digits. I would never use a
combination that switched between a group with an even number of
digits and a group of 3 digits.

For example: 4+4+2 or 4+2+4 etc is okay. But 3+3+4 is not.

On the other hand, a 9 digit number gets special treatment (from me!)
and is preferably spken as 3 groups of 3 digits.

I've heard people use the weirdest groupings for 8 digit bank account
number, when there's nothing simpler than 4+4 digits. Add a bit of
rising intonation at the end of each 4 digit group and it's a doddle to
convey.

On Friday, 14 May 2021 at 18:13:10 UTC+1, Pamela wrote:
On 15:53 14 May 2021, Chris said:

NY wrote:



French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts
notation for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid
ambiguity, whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous
pairs such as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

The pause is almost imperceptible, but it is there. It helps in
france that all phone numbers are 10 digits long so any
mistranscription is obvious. Whereas in the UK it's not always
obvious if you've dropped or gained a digit.
If I confirm any 10 digit number (phone number or otherwise) I would
divide it into groups of 2 or 4 digits. I would never use a
combination that switched between a group with an even number of
digits and a group of 3 digits.

For example: 4+4+2 or 4+2+4 etc is okay. But 3+3+4 is not.

On the other hand, a 9 digit number gets special treatment (from me!)
and is preferably spken as 3 groups of 3 digits.

I've heard people use the weirdest groupings for 8 digit bank account
number, when there's nothing simpler than 4+4 digits. Add a bit of
rising intonation at the end of each 4 digit group and it's a doddle to
convey.

As UK mobile numbers all start 07, I tend to say my own number as 07 999 999 999.

Pamela wrote

A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID.
Do you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

I don’t say anything to myself, just enter the 6 digit number.
Do it in 3s when telling a call center an order number etc.

Phone numbers are quite confusing given that I say the
number with a 4 digit first group and then two 3 digit
groups and some of the buggers read it back as 2 5 digit
groups and I have to think about whether it is correct.

The landline number is a 2 digit std code, then two 4 digit groups.

It's a genuine question to see what number span
people are using to remember random numbers.

On Sat, 15 May 2021 05:44:09 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
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In message , NY writes
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are
the chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were longer
than a couple of digits, they did some research and found that people
could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a 4-digit chunk was
harder to remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits
(one-two-seven [pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries
assign tens-and-units significance to pairs of digits (twelve [pause]
seventy-three [pause] forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal of
tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy) but you
write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both numbers
in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed one German
writing down the digits in the order that he heard them: first the
units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip three spaces
forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very cumbersome.


French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation
for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers make a
very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity, whereas
almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such as
vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

To add to the confusion, two of the letters in your French '20' are also
consistently reversed!
--
Ian

"Chris" wrote in message
...
NY wrote:
French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation for
80:
quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers make a
very
exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity, whereas almost
no
pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such as vignt-huit
trente-quatre
(28 34).

The pause is almost imperceptible, but it is there. It helps in france
that
all phone numbers are 10 digits long so any mistranscription is obvious.

Though it doesn't help if you are keying the digits as you (think you) hear
them, rather than writing it down, validating the number of digits and any
non-permitted combinations, and then dialling.

The grouping into twos or threes is fairly immaterial, but I can't
understand where the convention arose to read out phone numbers with
hundreds, tens and units weighting to the digits in each group "one hundred
and thirty seven" rather than "one two three". Especially for German or
Dutch where the tens and units are reversed (one extra stage of
disentangling).

As a matter of interest, what is the convention in France, Germany etc for
reading out other streams of digits such as credit card numbers, electricity
or gas account numbers etc - are those grouped into twos and read out as
tens-and-units? Or are they read out as separate digits, with a pause every
two or three digits?

"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation for
80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers make a
very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity, whereas
almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such as vignt-huit
trente-quatre (28 34).

To add to the confusion, two of the letters in your French '20' are also
consistently reversed!

Apologies. At least I was consistent... ly wrong ;-)

Vingt. Vingt. Vingt. I'll write 100 lines before bedtime ;-)


Part of the problem is that I've looked at the spelling of both so many
times now that mine actually looks "right" and the other looks "wrong". I
have a sneaking suspicion that I may have been mis-spelling it for a
loooooong time - maybe I got it wrong at school and it was never picked up,
and the habit has stuck.

"NY" wrote in message
...
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/
spaces, those are the chunks that I try to memorise.

That’s my big gripe, order numbers and tracking numbers
which are just a massive great 20 or 30 digit number.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were longer
than a couple of digits, they did some research and found that people
could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a 4-digit chunk was
harder to remember.

I don’t find that and remember my 8 digit landline number
fine and the first 4 digit group of the mobile number fine.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits (one-two-seven
[pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries assign tens-and-units
significance to pairs of digits (twelve [pause] seventy-three [pause]
forty-one).

Likely just habit, how they learned to do it.

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal of
tens and units -

English used to too but that has died out now.

you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy) but you write down 73 in the
opposite order.

Same with time, ten to 12 etc.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both numbers in
the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed one German writing
down the digits in the order that he heard them: first the units, then the
tens digit to the left of it; skip three spaces forwards for next unit and
back one for tens. This three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed
to be very cumbersome.

Likely he is dyslexic.

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation for
80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers make a
very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity, whereas
almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such as vignt-huit
trente-quatre (28 34).

Wogs should speak english.

On Sat, 15 May 2021 08:39:35 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

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--
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"Rod, you have a sick twisted mind. I suggest you stop your mindless
and totally irresponsible talk. Your mouth could get you into a lot of
trouble."
Message-ID:

"Peter Able" wrote in message
...
On 14/05/2021 14:03, Pamela wrote:
On 13:50 14 May 2021, NY said:
"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela
wrote:


A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your
ID. Do you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or
123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using
to remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are
the chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were
longer than a couple of digits, they did some research and found
that people could remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a
4-digit chunk was harder to remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits
(one-two-seven [pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries
assign tens-and-units significance to pairs of digits (twelve
[pause] seventy-three [pause] forty-one).

German has the problem of its "four and twenty blackbirds" reversal
of tens and units - you hear drei-und-siebzig (three and seventy)
but you write down 73 in the opposite order.

Most Germans have a mental buffer, waiting until they hear both
numbers in the pair before writing down the digits. But I noticed
one German writing down the digits in the order that he heard them:
first the units, then the tens digit to the left of it; skip three
spaces forwards for next unit and back one for tens. This
three-steps-forwards, one-step-back thing seemed to be very
cumbersome.

French falls foul of ambiguity because of its quatre-vignts notation
for 80: quatre vignts dix could be any of:

quatre-vignts-dix-huit (98)
quatre-vignts dix-huit (80 18)

A pause makes all the difference. I imagine that French speakers
make a very exaggerated pause in the second case to avoid ambiguity,
whereas almost no pause is needed between non-ambiguous pairs such
as vignt-huit trente-quatre (28 34).

I notice on the continent people often quote the digits of a phone
number in pairs, whereas the UK tends to quote a number in groups of
three digits.

I originally put it down to how their phone company laid out the
digits but I think it's more widespread than that.

Personally, I kind of visualise and alomst recognise the SIGHT of
digit-pairs but I remember digit-triplets mainly by their SOUND.


As already said, it may be structurally easier to work in digit pairs or
triplets - or a mixture.

Surely the only rule is that it is discourteous to confirm back a number
NOT in the format first spoken. E.g. 23 93 73 confirmed back as 239 373
!

Yeah, I find that a real nuisance but presumably thats
how its shown on their screen when you tell them the
number and they read it back to confirm it.

"Chris Green" wrote in message
...
In uk.d-i-y Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

I have a virtual mobile number for these, so they arrive in my E-Mail
and can be cut+paste to their destination. No memory required! :-)

One of mine completely automatically fills in the field in the app.

Pamela wrote
Chris wrote
NY wrote

If I confirm any 10 digit number (phone number or otherwise)
I would divide it into groups of 2 or 4 digits. I would never
use a combination that switched between a group with an
even number of digits and a group of 3 digits.

For example: 4+4+2 or 4+2+4 etc is okay. But 3+3+4 is not.

Our mobile numbers are mostly shown as 4+3+3 and most say
it like that and no one appears to have any problem with it.

On the other hand, a 9 digit number gets special treatment
(from me!) and is preferably spken as 3 groups of 3 digits.

I've heard people use the weirdest groupings for 8 digit
bank account number, when there's nothing simpler than
4+4 digits. Add a bit of rising intonation at the end of
each 4 digit group and it's a doddle to convey.

Pamela wrote:
On 14:58 14 May 2021, Peter Able said:

Surely the only rule is that it is discourteous to confirm back a
number NOT in the format first spoken. E.g. 23 93 73 confirmed
back as 239 373 !

It may seem so but digit grouping that's easier to recall (which is
what some people like to emphasise) is not the same as conventional
digit grouping when you want to confirm you've understood a number.

For example, Three Mobile customer service is: 0 33333 8 1001

That may be handy to remember after you have heard it enough times but
for a simple one-off confirmation it's messy because it breaks the
usual rhythm when speaking such numbers.

Nor can you easily confirm it fits the usual landline format of 5+6
digits.

I prefer: 03333 381 001.

Chunking comes with it, some RLE (run length encoding)
by the operator. You can be remembering the first cluster
as "zero and four threes". There is a tendency to chunk such
that repeated digits are at the beginning ot the end of the
chunk. As if doing it as "an RLE bit plus a sound".

Humans are both crafty... and lazy.

Paul

2 at a time for me, but I hate it since when its gabbled in audio, its just
not so clear as its read as a number. I wish they would say it or put it on
the text in groups of two. That way it would be fine.
The ones I hate are those that expire in one minute and I never make the
time limit. Remember I have to power up the blue tooth keyboard, then listen
to the text a couple of times, then find the field to type it into on the
page them type it in.
Its a bit like these automated telephone number recognition things, Any
noise and it falls out and asks again. When I have to read a card number
this way, I need to listen to each group and then repeat it, and the device
hears the words from my dictation machine and gets it wrong.
These systems do not think of older people or indeed those who need to be
prompted or are in noisy places.
Design flaw.

I am fighting Apples latest security at the moment which when I look at
passwords gives advice about passwords being week or using common words or
sequences, and threatens to use its own totally unmemorable ones, but
forgetting that you have devices on Windows with the same passwords and you
would then have to go about changing everything over manually.
It complains if you use the log in with my google account as a data leak
since the password has been used more than once, and as you say, if you use
an extra verification as well it just makes it far more hassle to do
anything at all. Result? You do not do anything that uses bank or other
sensitive info on line at all, but the banks keep on cutting their phone
staff and you cannot do things that way either. Bah Humbug.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Pamela" wrote in message
...
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

On 14 May 2021 at 13:50:14 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

"Theo" wrote in message
...
In uk.telecom.mobile Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

It depends on the structure of the number. eg:

55-67-99
132-231
1000-44
9-88888
27-288-9

Yes, if the number is already separated by hyphens/spaces, those are the
chunks that I try to memorise.

Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were longer than
a couple of digits, they did some research and found that people could
remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a 4-digit chunk was harder to
remember.

I'm not sure why the UK read a chunk as a stream of digits (one-two-seven
[pause] three-four-one) whereas European countries assign tens-and-units
significance to pairs of digits (twelve [pause] seventy-three [pause]
forty-one).

snip

My satnav does that to three and four digit road numbers. I must admit I
thought it must be an Americanism.

--
Roger Hayter

On 14/05/2021 13:16, Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.


I write it down.

Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

2 at a time for me, but I hate it since when its gabbled in audio, its
just not so clear as its read as a number. I wish they would say it or
put it on the text in groups of two. That way it would be fine.

I break up the big numbers into groups of 3.

The ones I hate are those that expire in one minute and I never
make the time limit. Remember I have to power up the blue
tooth keyboard, then listen to the text a couple of times,
then find the field to type it into on the page them type it in.

Its a bit like these automated telephone number recognition
things, Any noise and it falls out and asks again.

Havent come across any like that. Our post office works
the other way. When you tell the original automated
thing that answers the original call and say the reason
you called is about a parcel delivery, it asks you if the
tracking number ends in the last 4 digits stated. Never
had to give them the full number because it always
has the one I am having a problem with so far.

When I have to read a card number this way, I need to
listen to each group and then repeat it, and the device
hears the words from my dictation machine and gets
it wrong. These systems do not think of older people

Ours does.

or indeed those who need to be
prompted or are in noisy places.
Design flaw.

Never tried ours in a noisy place, my house is nice and quiet.

I am fighting Apples latest security at the moment which
when I look at passwords gives advice about passwords
being week or using common words or sequences, and
threatens to use its own totally unmemorable ones,

Never seen that with my iphone, only sites complaining.

but forgetting that you have devices on Windows
with the same passwords and you would then have
to go about changing everything over manually.

It complains if you use the log in

Log in with what ?

with my google account as a data leak since the
password has been used more than once, and
as you say, if you use an extra verification as
well it just makes it far more hassle to do
anything at all. Result? You do not do anything
that uses bank or other sensitive info on line at all,

I use the fingerprint touch ID for all of mine.

but the banks keep on cutting their phone
staff and you cannot do things that way either.

I hate using bank staff and hardly ever need to.

Bah Humbug.

"Pamela" wrote in message
...
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.

On Sat, 15 May 2021 19:26:09 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

On Friday, 14 May 2021 at 13:55:02 UTC+1, NY wrote:


Apparently when the GPO started issuing phone numbers that were longer than
a couple of digits, they did some research and found that people could
remember chunks of either 2 or 3 digits, but a 4-digit chunk was harder to
remember.

Around thirty years ago, I moved to a house in a small town - and had a four-digit phone number. In itself, not a problem, but everyone else in the town only had three digit numbers. Others in the town would keep making mistakes and dropping one or other digit because they simply assumed all numbers had three digits.

Obviously all now long gone.

On 14/05/2021 13:16, Pamela wrote:
A web site sends you 6-digit number to your phone to check your ID. Do
you memorise this by saying to yourself: 12-34-56 or 123-456?

It's a genuine question to see what number span people are using to
remember random numbers.


I found the problem more difficult when I had to enter the number into
an app on my phone to buy a ticket at a Swiss railway station.

--
Michael Chare