Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
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.
In the old days, there was no 'optional' way to dial. Optional became
possible with digital computers on telephone equipment, but mostly from
the user's end. As VOIP and mobile phones have different rules and adapt
to the land line rules at the exchange, the following examples are land
line based:
Some small communities still dial four digits to reach a neighbor that
has the same area code and prefix.
Most local communities use the prefix and number to dial anyone in their
local calling area unless their local calling area includes a different
area code. They do not dial a "1" for local calls.
Outside the local calling area but within the same area code, a "1" must
be dialed before the prefix and number. Do not use the area code as the
call will fail.
Outside the area code and outside the local calling area, a "1", area
code, prefix, and number must be dialed.
The above is why telephone numbers were usually delimited in one form or
another with the numbers in the order in which they must be dialed
(C-AAA-PPP-NNNN).
With all of these variations in how a number must be dialed makes
formatting the telephone number difficult. This is why there are lots of
local variations. Everyone has their own preference, but usually the
numbers are delimited because of the many different requirements in
different locations. No matter what you use as a delimiter, the format
is 'long distance code/country code', 'area code', 'prefix', and
'number'. 18005551212 (no delimiters is easiest to type in and is the
preferred format for most databases), 1 800 555 1212 (spacebar is an
easy hit on a keyboard), 1-800-555-1212 (minus sign on a number pad),
1.800.555.1212 (decimal point on a number pad, usually easier to hit
than the minus sign), 1(800)555-1212 (traditional, but more difficult to
type in), and personal variations that may include almost any characters
other than digits as delimiters, usually non-alphabetic.
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