[math-fun] Numerical nerdism

I just thought of a new way to be annoying: When communicating to a customer service agent one of those strings of digits that pervade telephone transactions in this century, encode it as a counting number and recite it accordingly, whether or not it's what people do. As in "My Social Security Number, ma'am? It's one hundred twenty-three million, four hundred fifty-six thousand, seven hundred eighty-nine" (or whatever). Or "My credit card number, sir? It's one quadrillion, two hundred and thirty-eight trillion, (etc.)" Or "My zip code at MIT is two thousand one hundred and twenty nine ... with a zero in the front." Though I suppose that with a zip code like that, it may be redundant to say "at MIT". Jim Propp