Re: Phone numbers and form fields

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From: Aaron Crane
Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields
Date: 11:01 on 07 Mar 2005
Philip Newton writes:
> English addresses are especially infamous for occasionally requiring
> six or more rows of address.

Seems reasonable enough to me:

  Flat NN
  Building Name
  NN Street Name
  Locality
  POSTTOWN
  County
  Postcode

I've recently moved back to Edinburgh.  My address here is nice and
short:

  28/3 Street Name
  Edinburgh
  Postcode

It's the "28/3" bit that gets people.  It's actually fairly sensible:
the building is number 28 on my street, and I'm in flat 3 in the
building.  It's a common pattern round here, so if you need to give your
address to someone local, they know exactly what you mean if you say
"twenty-eight three".  But people in national call centres are always
baffled.

"Twenty-eight slash three, Street Name."

"Twenty-eight flat three?"

"No, just a slash character -- a diagonal line."

"Really?"

"Yes, really.  Use your postcode address lookup; it's in the list you
get."

Fortunately, I haven't yet encountered a website I might want to buy
things from that would mangle it to "283 Street Name".

-- 
Aaron Crane
There's stuff above here

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