Hi, so I was wondering: how exactly might five-digit address numbers be pronounced?
As an example of this, one of the aquatic centers I like to visit in the KC area has an address of 13805 Johnson Drive. There are a variety of ways that someone could say that number:
- 'thirteen thousand, eight-o-five' (whole number)
- 'thirteen, eight-o-five' (break at the thousands place)
- 'one-thirty-eight-o-five' (break at the hundreds place, like with most three- and four-digit addresses)
- 'one-three-eight-o-five' (each digit pronounced individually)
I would like to know: what method of pronunciation do you prefer, and what do you hear most often? I'm guessing it may well vary depending on what the exact number is. Also, are there any sort of local or regional tendencies that you perceive? I'm eager to find out more about all that!
Most times I hear a 5-digit address, it is like your 2nd choice, "thirteen, eight-o-five". Occasionally, I might hear the last choice, but that's likely from a TV/radio reporter or anchor, or an announcer. I never hear the 3rd one. The first one might be heard in the off-chance of an address being an even number with zeros ("ten thousand", "thirteen thousand"), but there's not that many of those.
Easy: there are no five-digit address numbers in Spain (and I'd say most, if not all, of Europe as well) :sombrero:, as that would require a ridiculously long street (in the order of 60 miles). Even four-digit address numbers are really rare, I know only two instances of streets running into four digits, and one is a suburban road.
In your example, I would say "thirteen eight-o-five". When my brother still lived in Omaha, his address number was "fourteen one-twelve". I knew other people with 5 digits in their address and that was the format they all used.
Quote from: -- US 175 -- on July 05, 2020, 03:30:16 AM
address being an even number with zeros ("ten thousand", "thirteen thousand"), but there's not that many of those.
Or if there's a number of zeros in the middle. That applies even for 4-digit numbers.
For example, 4002 Main St might be pronounced "forty oh two" or "four thousand two".
20092 Main St might be pronounced "twenty oh ninety two" or "twenty thousand ninety two".
I would say a number like 17850 as 17 then 850.
When I was a kid I lived at 10433, we always said ten-four-thirty-three
I've always pronounced all five numbers individually so there's no confusion.
My employer's address is 14888. We usually say "fourteen, eight, eighty, eight" or "fourteen, triple/tribble eight".
For me it would depend on the situation in which I were to pronounce it–which, incidentally, is also the principle I follow with regard to four-digit numbers (our address has a four-digit number). If I'm giving the address over the phone, I pronounce each digit individually to avoid possible ambiguity or misheard numbers (so, using the OP's example, "one three eight zero five"–"zero," never "oh"). I don't, however, use "niner" for nine because it confuses too many people (the same people who get confused if you use "bravo" for "B" instead of saying "'b' as in 'boy'").
If I'm just speaking to someone face to face, such as a neighbor, I might use a different form. Addresses in our neighborhood are four digits in the 6600 range, so I might say "sixty-six fifty-one." (Of course, with a neighbor who knows the area there's less risk of ambiguity than there is if you're talking to, say, a deliveryman over the phone.) If I were giving the White House's address, I'd say "sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue NW." Or the house we lived in when I was born might be "ten-oh-eight" (1008).
It also makes a difference if I know I'm speaking to someone for whom English is not the first language, such as many deliverymen. For them, I'll always pronounce each digit. It just makes it easier for both of us.
The examples GaryV offers remind me of how people in Washington DC pronounce some of the ZIP Codes. A lot of them pronounce "20005" not as "two zero zero zero five" but as "two thousand five." That always throws me off, even though I know they do it, because that number is actually twenty thousand five, not two thousand five. Other than that, I think I've almost always heard ZIP Codes said as a series of five digits. Same in most cases for area codes–almost everyone I know has always pronounced the three digits separately except for some people in Maryland who call the four-one-zero area code "four-ten," so the phone number 410-238-3395 would, to those people, be "four-ten two-three-eight three-three-nine-five."
I have a five-digit address number, 23410. Almost always, I say it two-three-four-one-zero. Probably, this is because if I'm saying it to someone, it's because they are writing it down, and I want them to get it correct. On the rare occasion that I don't say each number, such as in a casual conversation with a neighbor, I would say twenty-three-four-ten.
I use each individually. It doesn't "sound" right to do it any other way.
Why wouldn't you say it any differently than a US Zip Code? I generally hear them pronounced per digit, though the old album ads for Ktel used to say Huntington Station, N.Y. 1-double oh-something something
I usually say my house address as 4 individual numbers (ie: two three seven seven). Most others seem to say it as two numbers (twenty-three seventy-seven).
The last 4 of my phone number...same thing.
I'd normally break it after the first 3 digits, since the first three refer to the street at the start of the block (similar to what I'd do for three- and four-digit addresses), or alternatively as 5 separate numbers. Most people I know use one of those two methods, also.
My current address is a little odd, however, and I'm not entirely sure why. Let's just say it's 13013 (don't want to give my real address, but that's close enough for this discussion). I'd pronounce it as "one thirty thirteen", but a lot of people pronounce it as "thirteen oh thirteen", which has always seemed a little strange to me.
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on July 05, 2020, 04:14:37 AM
Easy: there are no five-digit address numbers in Spain (and I'd say most, if not all, of Europe as well) :sombrero:, as that would require a ridiculously long street (in the order of 60 miles). Even four-digit address numbers are really rare, I know only two instances of streets running into four digits, and one is a suburban road.
Five-digit addresses are fairly common, especially the further west you go in the US. Most postcolonial US cities have some sort of N-S-E-W grid system, even when they're skewed like Green Bay or St Louis. Numbers get higher away from the center and standardized numbers get higher the further away from the center you go. Addresses in the newer developed parts of West St Louis County get well above 10000 because someone, possibly the postal service, needed to create addresses for unincorporated areas as suburbs grew. The older suburbs typically have their own smaller grids, but their grids rarely go beyond their incorporated limits.
I now live in SoCal and I think the grid extends from the county seat in Riverside, with again some local exceptions. The LaQuinta Costco was built in what was a largely rural area of date farms and winter crops; it's address is 79795 CA-111.
On the topic, I don't really give it any thought. I'd probably say all five numbers individually if the number was unfamiliar, but I've never noticed a pattern. If it were my address, I would likely break it up into groups as I've always done. Three-digit addresses are six-22 (622) and four digits 54-27 (5427). I haven't noticed a pattern in others.
Quote from: KCRoadFan on July 05, 2020, 03:11:34 AM
Hi, so I was wondering: how exactly might five-digit address numbers be pronounced?
As an example of this, one of the aquatic centers I like to visit in the KC area has an address of 13805 Johnson Drive. There are a variety of ways that someone could say that number:
- 'thirteen thousand, eight-o-five' (whole number)
- 'thirteen, eight-o-five' (break at the thousands place)
- 'one-thirty-eight-o-five' (break at the hundreds place, like with most three- and four-digit addresses)
- 'one-three-eight-o-five' (each digit pronounced individually)
I would like to know: what method of pronunciation do you prefer, and what do you hear most often? I'm guessing it may well vary depending on what the exact number is. Also, are there any sort of local or regional tendencies that you perceive? I'm eager to find out more about all that!
I live in southern Alameda County, CA where 5-digit addresses are the norm rather than exceptional.
Most people here seem to pronounce them as they would if they were the price of a car: "Thirty-Three Eight-Oh-Five" or as single digits "Three-Three-Eight-Zero-Five". As a pilot, I was taught that identifiers are passed as single digits. Otherwise it would be "Three-Three Thousand Eight Hundred Five". Four digit addresses are typically broken in hundreds: "Eighty-one twenty-six".
Quote from: jeffandnicole on July 05, 2020, 09:57:54 PM
I usually say my house address as 4 individual numbers (ie: two three seven seven). Most others seem to say it as two numbers (twenty-three seventy-seven).
The last 4 of my phone number...same thing.
I think one reason I find it weird to say a phone number as anything other than individual digits is that the individual digits are what you dial (or program into your contacts). You don't dial "four-ten," you dial "four-one-zero," for example.
Supposedly that's one reason why 911 is pronounced as nine-one-one and not nine-eleven–they were worried that children and stupid people would waste time looking for a nonexistent eleven on the phone dial instead of understanding to dial two "ones," so when they started promoting it, they made a conscious effort to promote it as three digits.
I usually pronounce each number individually nowadays since it's least confusing for most people. I grew up in a neighborhood with block numbers in the hundreds, though, and usually pronounced them like "one-forty" for 140.
When I lived at a 5-digit address (10138) I always said "one - oh - one - three - eight" (yes, I know it should be zero, but everyone understands the oh)
However when I lived at 3927, I always said "thirty-nine twenty-seven"
I now live at 5300 and I say "fifty-three hundred"
I also grew up in an area where 5-digit addresses were the norm, and we pronounced each digit individually ("one-eight-three-eight-three").
Santa Clara County (CA) addresses *start* at 10000, unless you are in a city that defines its own numbering system.
Quote from: WillWeaverRVA on July 06, 2020, 10:27:21 AM
I usually pronounce each number individually nowadays since it's least confusing for most people. I grew up in a neighborhood with block numbers in the hundreds, though, and usually pronounced them like "one-forty" for 140.
I grew up in a neighborhood with four-digit numbers and most people said them as two-digit combinations, e.g., 8378 would be "eighty-three seventy-eight."
I've lived at a 19711 and a 60893, and in both cases I'd always pronounce each number separately. Sounds weird to me any other way.
My current address is a 4 digit though (not going to disclose it), and I say it like 2 pairs of 2 digit numbers, though there is a zero that I say like "oh 2" for 02 (for example). If I'm ever on the phone or something and I need to be extra clear, I still say each number individually, and say "zero" instead of "oh".
My guess is that we instinctively say 5 digit street addresses in the same way we say zip codes, which for me has always been each number individually (eg. 90210).
How I would say them:
13805 = one three eight o five (to be clear)
13805 = one thirty-eight o five (to indicate, possibly, that it's near 138th Street)
20092 = two double-o nine 2
17850 = one seven eight five o (to be clear)
17850 = one seventy-eight fifty (to indicate, possibly, that it's near 178th Street)
Five-digit address numbers aren't very common in this area (not sure that there are any in my county at all), and if they do exist they're not related to a block-numbering scheme, so it wouldn't make much sense to say, e.g., 16384 as "one sixty-three eighty-four". I'd say "sixteen three eighty-four" instead.
I've found that multiple zeroes in a number can cause confusion in general.
Take, for example, the number 20006. The number is properly, of course, twenty thousand six. However, some people say the number as "two thousand six". This is often because, I assume, they're not sure at a quick glance where the comma should go. However, I suspect it's possible that some of them are breaking the number up into two chunks of five and one digit each (2000—6).
I've dealt with this when field techs call in with a work order code.
In my long-ago days at the telephone company, we were taught to always say each number individually and distinctly, whether it be street addresses or telephone numbers.
555-2097 is pronounced in telco-speak as "five, five, five (pause) two, zero (NEVER the letter "O"), nine-un, (two syllables to make it distinct from five), seven." I guess it stuck, since I still do that. My five-digit house number has two consecutive zeros in the middle of it, and I always say "zero zero" and never "oh oh."
(The reason for never using "O" to mean "zero" is because the letter O on phone dials appears on the #6 button (or dial pull, if you're that old), and believe it or not that confused some folks.)
I do each digit individually since I live at a 5 digit address.
I've never personally lived or worked anywhere with a 5-digit address, but I generally hear others use two main ways:
1) In a big city/suburbs, especially with numbered streets > 100, 17624 is most often one seventy-six twenty-four
2) In rural areas, 17624 is most often seventeen six twenty-four
I did have one person once say 17624 as seventeen sixty-two four and it sounded so weird it took me a while to figure out what they meant.
Quote from: cabiness42 on July 06, 2020, 09:51:19 PM
I did have one person once say 17624 as seventeen sixty-two four and it sounded so weird it took me a while to figure out what they meant.
When I answer the phone for credit card scammers, I give them a bogus Visa number whose check digit still works (but fails a bin lookup). In order to help keep the conversation going as long as possible (and thereby keep them from actually scamming anyone during that time), I like to read the number quickly but group random pairs of digits together. So, for example, the string 954611236 I might read as "nine five four sixty-one one twenty-three six". This prompts them to have me read the number
again, whereupon I group
different pairs of digits together. So I might say "nine fifty-four six eleven two thirty-six".
I also give them a false name and an address and postal code from Mexico–the latter of which also happens to be a ZIP code in rural North Carolina. For vehicle warranty scammers I say I have a 2008 Mercedes Trailblazer, then they ask if I meant to say Chevy, and I insist it's not the Chevy Trailblazer but rather the Mercedes Trailblazer (which was a bicycle, but only two of them have figured that out so far). I have way too much fun with these criminals...
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on July 05, 2020, 09:50:33 AM
I've always pronounced all five numbers individually so there's no confusion.
Quote from: Big John on July 05, 2020, 12:41:39 PM
I use each individually. It doesn't "sound" right to do it any other way.
+1, +1.
Or is that +11?
Quote from: webny99 on July 07, 2020, 01:09:14 PM
+1
That's the country calling code for the USA and other places in the NANP.
Quote from: webny99 on July 07, 2020, 01:09:14 PM
+11
No such country code.
At the beginning of July, I moved to a house with a 5-digit address - 13327 - located along a state highway. The address, like many rural addresses in Montana is actually the point of the house along the highway, so my house is at (imaginary) mile marker 133.27 of the state highway, or .27 miles from the 133 mile marker.
For this reason, I've found myself saying one thirty-three twenty-seven.
There's a street in Santa Cruz County, California where some of the house numbers use spaces or a dash, i.e., 2 2670 East Cliff Drive or 2-2670 East Cliff Drive. I assume that is pronounced like the third or fourth options, say, 'two-twenty-six-seventy'. That's the only street that I've ever come across where the house number is displayed like that.
https://goo.gl/maps/E6iU1jKDN4KbDBwC6 (https://goo.gl/maps/E6iU1jKDN4KbDBwC6) :confused:
Looking at this thread, I first thought "thank god I don't have a 5-digit address" ... then I remembered how to count...
In all seriousness, I pronounce my address like "four-twenty sixty-nine" . (Fake address, obviously. No doxxing here.)
Quote from: mapman on July 10, 2020, 01:55:13 AM
There's a street in Santa Cruz County, California where some of the house numbers use spaces or a dash, i.e., 2 2670 East Cliff Drive or 2-2670 East Cliff Drive. I assume that is pronounced like the third or fourth options, say, 'two-twenty-six-seventy'. That's the only street that I've ever come across where the house number is displayed like that.
https://goo.gl/maps/E6iU1jKDN4KbDBwC6 (https://goo.gl/maps/E6iU1jKDN4KbDBwC6) :confused:
For something kind of related, check out
this post (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=19377.msg2194300#msg2194300).
Quote from: MCRoads on July 10, 2020, 02:32:12 AM
Looking at this thread, I first thought "thank god I don't have a 5-digit address" ... then I remembered how to count...
In all seriousness, I pronounce my address like "four-twenty sixty-nine" . (Fake address, obviously. No doxxing here.)
Nice.
As we run into 5-digit addresses here, near Chicago, I usually use the following format, nnn-nn, i.e. 135, 01 "one thirty five, oh one". This is due to the prevalence of the streets being numbered at least as far out as Kendall County on the west, and Kankakee County on the south. Hence, an address that starts "135" is south of 135th Street, up to 1/8 of a mile. Then it switches to start with "136", south of 136th Street (and so on).
My favorite 5-digit number is 47058.
47058 = 2 * 3 * 11 * 23 * 31; 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/11 + 1/23 + 1/31 + 1/47058 = 1
This number is pretty obscure, though; the power of 2 mentioned in a previous post is much more obvious as to why it was chosen in an example.
Quote from: kphoger on July 06, 2020, 02:30:12 PM
20092 = two double-o nine 2
I'd use "two hundred, ninety-two" to define its place as south of 200th Street or west of 200th Avenue here.
Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2020, 02:43:03 PM
Quote from: kphoger on July 06, 2020, 02:30:12 PM
20092 = two double-o nine 2
I'd use "two hundred, ninety-two" to define its place as south of 200th Street or west of 200th Avenue here.
Which is 292.
Quote from: 1 on July 10, 2020, 02:44:08 PM
Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2020, 02:43:03 PM
Quote from: kphoger on July 06, 2020, 02:30:12 PM
20092 = two double-o nine 2
I'd use "two hundred, ninety-two" to define its place as south of 200th Street or west of 200th Avenue here.
Which is 292.
Which would be pronounced "two, ninety-two" as it's in the 200 block of somewhere.
Growing up, we used to have street signs like these in rural Will County: https://goo.gl/maps/AqJqKXyJxWfYkU5b9
However, they've gotten much rarer with time.
Even today, there are a lot of numbered streets that give five-digit addresses:
https://goo.gl/maps/RZqURsLKHFmrthaNA
https://goo.gl/maps/vyxu7gwAYMaWmmtt5
Quote from: mapman on July 10, 2020, 01:55:13 AM
There's a street in Santa Cruz County, California where some of the house numbers use spaces or a dash, i.e., 2 2670 East Cliff Drive or 2-2670 East Cliff Drive. I assume that is pronounced like the third or fourth options, say, 'two-twenty-six-seventy'. That's the only street that I've ever come across where the house number is displayed like that.
https://goo.gl/maps/E6iU1jKDN4KbDBwC6 (https://goo.gl/maps/E6iU1jKDN4KbDBwC6) :confused:
My father's mother lived in a part of Queens (Far Rockaway) where some addresses have a hyphen between two two-digit numbers. She would say something like 20-46 as "twenty forty-six" without noting the hyphen was there. I don't know whether that's the routine way to say it.
Quote from: 1 on July 10, 2020, 02:44:08 PM
Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2020, 02:43:03 PM
Quote from: kphoger on July 06, 2020, 02:30:12 PM
20092 = two double-o nine 2
I'd use "two hundred, ninety-two" to define its place as south of 200th Street or west of 200th Avenue here.
Which is 292.
And that's precisely why I don't say it that way.
Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2020, 02:45:02 PM
Which would be pronounced "two, ninety-two" as it's in the 200 block of somewhere.
You might know that's how you'd say '292', but your goal is presumably for the
other person to easily understand what number you're saying.
I used to dispatch for a field tech who would call in a work order alteration by saying something like "I need to add an eight hundred fourteen". What he meant was to add an 80014 code, but I would instinctively type 814 and then wait for him to give me the final two digits of the code.
Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2020, 02:43:03 PM
Quote from: kphoger on July 06, 2020, 02:30:12 PM
20092 = two double-o nine 2
I'd use "two hundred, ninety-two" to define its place as south of 200th Street or west of 200th Avenue here.
Reminds me of plugs on game shows. Rod Roddy doing the Price Is Right ticket plug: "nine double oh three six" for 90036. Johnny Gilbert reading an address to send your info if you were interested in being a Jeopardy! contestant: "nine double zero three eight" but a ticket plug by Johnny once used "nine double oh two eight"...maybe it depended on his mood as he read it!
Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2020, 02:43:03 PM
I'd use "two hundred, ninety-two" to define its place as south of 200th Street or west of 200th Avenue here.
Quote from: 1 on July 10, 2020, 02:44:08 PM
Which is 292.
Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2020, 02:45:02 PM
Which would be pronounced "two, ninety-two" as it's in the 200 block of somewhere.
A lot of this depends on familiarity with the area. If a local is giving an address to another local, saying something like "two hundred, ninety-two" would probably be okay, but if giving an address to an out-of-towner, it probably wouldn't be.
When I lived in Portland, OR, my address number was (barely) five digits: 10005. When asked, I'd generally say "one-triple-oh-five". But that was an outlier. During my time living in the Inland Empire, I had two 5-digit numbers, one back in the '60's in Loma Linda when I attended UCR, and more recently in Hesperia. The former was a real doozy: 25467 (blocks counted from the L.A. county line between Pomona and Montclair); for the 6 months I lived there it was "two-fifty-four-sixty-seven". The same applied for my Hesperia number: 16375: "one sixty-three-seventy-five". In both instances, my immediate neighbors used the same descriptive term for their addresses, so given a lack of variation, I never changed my own rendering of the addresses. Maybe it's just a San Bernardino County idiom, but it seems to be more or less universally accepted in that region.
Quote from: sparker on July 21, 2020, 05:56:54 PM
When I lived in Portland, OR, my address number was (barely) five digits: 10005. When asked, I'd generally say "one-triple-oh-five".
I would say "ten double-o five" for some reason.
A field tech I referenced earlier would have called in such a work order code as "one thousand and five". Boo!