Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:
Sun, 31 Oct 2010 20:02:23 +0200, /Stanimir Stamenkov/:
Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:31:37 -0500, /JohnW-Mpls/:
For years, all phone numbers had hyphen separators (212-555-1212) but
use of the dot separator (212.555.1212) seems to be growing.
Any advantage of one over the other?
What I've seen as mostly recommended and widely used in examples is that
"only spaces should be used to visually separate groups of numbers",
e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.123>...
But here's some more specific info for North America
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_conventions_for_writing_telephone_numbers>:
The traditional convention for phone numbers is (AAA) BBB-BBBB...
Sometimes the stylized format of AAA.BBB.BBBB is seen, more common
since the rise of the Internet and the dot-separated notation of
domain names and their subdomains.
One small piece of background: in the olden days, the area code (the
first three digits) were usually parenthesized because local callers
(who shared the same area code) could omit them when dialing -- the
parentheses meant "optional, use as needed," or something like that.
With the advent of 10-digit dialing, where even local callers must dial
all 10 digits even when they share the area code, the parentheses have
fallen out of use.
As for periods and hyphens, I never saw periods here in the US until the
last few years, so to me they look foreign. I've seen them in foreign
texts for decades, and that fact helps form my impression that they're
foreign. But I also now see them from native-born monolingual Americans,
and a growing alternative perception in my mind is that they're doing it
for stylistic reasons, to appear chic or something.
--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
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