Just as in every country, there is a particular number you dial to dial between area codes. (They aren’t called area codes in the UK, but I’m not sure what people tend to call them — calling or dialling codes, I think). In the UK that number is 0. In the US if I want to give someone my phone number I say simply say “(8-0-5) 1-2-3-4-5-6-7″ because every body freakin’ knows they have to dial the 1 if they are outside the area code. Now here in the UK it goes two ways generally.
The first involves simply giving your number as 0-2-0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 stating the leading 0. The other way involves saying where you are followed by the above as in “Southampton 0-2-3-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8″ which is completely 1910s. Why say “Southampton”? Sometimes people will say “Southampton 1-2-3-4-5-6″ which is annoying if you don’t know what the code is for Southampton.
When I first got here and went to give out my phone number, I left out the leading 0 since, you know, everyone knows this and this confused the shit out of a few people. I had one person say “Do you mean OH-ONE-TWO-THREE?” Well yes, I do because I’m in the UK, I’ve given you a UK number, and get this, the whole of the UK requires you dial a ZERO if you are calling between different areas.
After I figured out that I had to actually say that leading OH/ZERO, I started saying ZERO-ONE-TWO-THREE… and this also caused confusion since for whatever reason people like to refer to it as an OH (like the letter that comes between N and P) in phone numbers but naught when it’s the numeral any other time. The person said “Do you mean OH”? No, I mean the numeral zero.
-Betty Crocker
