[Telecom] Exchange Name pronounciation

Back in the days of named exchange dialing with New York Telephone in Buffalo before the seven digit dialing cutover in 1960, EXport was on a #5XB in the office my phone number is served from. It became 716-838 (TF

8) and stayed on a #5XB until 1989 or so.

CYpress became 716-652 (NL 2) which probably was on a #5XB in the office in the village of East Aurora.

OXford became 716-634 (NF 4) which was on a #5XB in the North Cayuga St office in the village of Williamsville.

I found a worn conversion card on a WE 302 I bought in an antique shop. All the named exchanges I listed above came from unworn portions of the card. It seems to me that the dial conversion card was more valuable than the phone in some sense.

Isn't the name Baring (an English surname) pronounced BEAR-ing everywhere?

"Barring" with two R's would be pronounced BAR-ing.

Or would it?

If so, perhaps that is why the exchange name was kept in use until

1980.

Not all oddball names were converted, nor all names conformed to the list.

BTW, the TCI article pointed out another problem with exchanges named for towns. To me, that was logical, including after dial. They purposed changed such names (ie making FLemington FLowers). The reason was to avoid confusion by people who said "Operator, get me Atlantic City 1234" which may mean the town or an exchange name.

Another thing the Bell System sought to eliminate at that time was calling by name. It's hard for us to believe today, but in the old days you could call long distance and ask for "Get me John Smith in Peoria", the and toll operator would call Information first to get the number, then place the call.

BTW, Direct Distance Dialing wasn't used that much by business at first because many businesses, particularly PBXs, requested time & charges or called Person to person, and those calls still required an operator. T&C was a free service until the DDD discounts of the

1970s. An hotel might have so many such calls that the information was sent back via Teletype.

Often when they went to seven digits they merely added a digit to the existing name, so someone who was EXport 1234 became EXport 3-1234. But sometimes it was necessary to go to a whole new code to avoid duplication.

NY Telephone experimented with oddball two-letter codes instead of a full name. This was an attempt to wean away from names and expand usage to include unpronouncible combinations. Many places in NY State had such codes. I don't think other Bell System locations tried it.

There are collectors of number cards and that undoubtedly would be interesting to them.

In Phila, which kept names the longest, number cards for Touch Tone and Trimeline phones were tiny rectangular strips. On them only two letters were used. But on a few they actually spelled out the full name, squeezing it in. I saw one with DEvonshire spelled out.

Speaking of number cards, in the old days they used fancy ones in some places, which had little cutouts for black digits that fit in, giving a very professional appearance to it, more so than a rubber stamp commonly used.

However, I think it was very rarely that they didn't use the rubber stamp, even for extensions of a PBX; I almost never saw a handwritten number card during Bell System days. Even toward the end when they had Phone Center Doors, they would stamp the number stickers, not handwrite them. Telco pay phones today have Dymo labelled number cards although some are handwritten.

Do telephone made today even have a space for a number card?