Walnuts Two

Ask a kid why there are letters on his iPhone’s keypad, and you’ll get to tell the hoary tale of how they were originally conceived to make telephone numbers easier to remember: first to identify your neighbourhood—like our first number in the WAlnut exchange—later as a marketing gimmick, like 1-800-FLOWERS . . . an appealing idea to a nerd like me. Except 922-1469 gave me nothing, nor 487-7557, not even 925-7719 (back when you got a new number every time you moved). The fourth, finally, gave up two: LEVI-COP, which made little sense; and JET-YAMS which made no sense at all.

I’d have never even heard of the Walnut exchange, if it weren’t for a history teacher of mine who was working on a side-hustle he called Memory Power, a way of making up memorable images to remember less memorable things. In class, I offered up my phone number as a test, and he came up with a scenario involving Charles I, who was executed in 1649, laying his neck on the chopping block with two walnuts on his head. All well and good, I suppose, if it weren’t for all the history stuff you had to remember to get there.

Inspired by Perpetuating the Obsolete. Image by Microsoft Bing’s Image Creator.