Can I ask you guys a personal question? No judging?
Is anybody out there walking around singing the following all day long?
“Echad shmoneh meot, arba meot, arba meot…
AY!
I!
JEE!
I!
JEE!
Um, me neither.
By the way, that is one freaky baby.
Who laughs like that?
Don’t you just hate the way they give you a phone number? It’s never the first three then then next four. It’s a completely random amount of double digits and triple digits. My South African boss gives a phone number as the first 4 digits, then the last three. It’s just the wrong verbal rhythm.
Anyway, it seems that you are listening to the radio these days. Good for you! And what the heck is wrong with the Umbrella song? However, at the moment I’ve moved on to Jason Mraz and his song “I’m Yours”. I will be cuing up YouTube now.
Have a great day!
The Little One sings it occasionally, though he usually seems to prefer the Reshet Gimmel jingle. Of course, he’s four years old.
No judging…
Speaking of commercialls, my son is now obsessed with checking every AC he sees to to check if it is Elactra or Torrrrnado.
If I had a kid like that I’d send it back.
It’s Damien.
I must have ranted about the phone number rhythm a hundred times. What’s the most numbers you’ve heard given all together? I heard a woman start off with 05234. I was like “WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!” as I tried to catch up after the non-existent pause. People also don’t write dashes which makes it harder to read and memorize. I am not being a complaining American; psychologists and memory experts have proven this, dammit!
I love this rant!
Listen, it's all to do with the digit change in Israel. They added an extra digit in like 2002, and everyone flipped out and couldn't adapt to the 10 digit structure.
thereofre, people need to group the 4 together, then what they're used to, 3 and 3. that's changing but.. still funny.
YOU try changing it. Take your first ever phone number.. your us phone number.. whatever.
now try saying it out loud comfortable as 4-3-3
It's a mind f&%$!
I must confess, when I learned my cell phone number it was still in the 3 digits, 3 digits, 3 digits phase, so that’s how I learned it. So now, if I give my cell number I can’t convert it to the 10 digit number, it’s 4, 3, 3.
מה לעשות? יהיה בסדר
Ok. That was weird.
Ari’s comment and mine showed up at the exact same time, because we were typing it at the same time and we said the exact same thing! Spooky!
Oh, but I wanted to point out that this only applies to cell phones. I could be wrong, but regular phones (ie Bezek, that plugs into your wall) were always 7 digits, weren’t they? With a 2 digit area code. Still Israelis give you the city name, then the area code, then random breaks with no rhyme or reason.
WE MUST CHANGE THE WORLD!
It’s not that it’s a *different* rhythm (like the 4-4-3), it’s that there *is* no standard rhythm. I’ve heard 4-3-3, 3-3-4, 3-3-2-2….BUT NO WAY WILL I TOLERATE BEGINNING WITH 5, DAMMIT!!! I’m just saying there’s got to be a standard.
By the way, Kevin James has a joke about bad phone rhythm. Didn’t know anyone in the US was guilty of this. The video and audio are off but it’s about 15 minutes in. Good stuff.
http://thebignoob.com/posts/sweat-the-small-stuff/
Ilana – I remember when landlines in Israel were 6 digits. They started switching over to 7 in the early 90s….
And if we’re complaining about numbers, why do Americans insist on writing 7s that look like 1s?
what is this, a poetry class? phone numbers in iambic pantameter?…
what I am surprised about is that the word phone numbers are only now catching on.
1-800-משכנתא
the problem is that Israelis still have no idea what the hell a word phone number means, so on the commercials they have to show a number pad which lights-up on the number as they spell out MASHKANTA. there was even a radio add for some other company and the voice reading the commercial had to explain “look at your keypad ד is 2, א is 1″
For such an intelligent and inventive country you have to admit it’s pretty lame
Marisa, good to know. I’ve also heard that Israel had only tv one channel up until the mid-80s or so. My Israeli friends (who aren’t that old) say “I remember back when there was only one channel!”
And I do remember that Kevin James thing, but in my real-life experience, it was pretty rare to have someone give me their number as: five hundred fifty five, one hundred twenty-three, four. Or fifty-five, fifty-one, two hundred thirty-four. Or five million, five hundred fifty-one thousand, two hundred thirty-four.
Well, let’s just count our blessings. They could be giving us words in Hebrew that match up to the numbers like: בית דפוק 3572928 (I just made that up, so don’t call it–like 8675309, don’t call that either.)
Worse yet might be gematria, but I shouldn’t go giving them any ideas, right?
(Yeesh! Just before I sent this Daniel’s comment comes up. What, did I send you a psychic message?)
Oh, and the point about the words for phone numbers is that I really don’t spell well in Hebrew so I’m likely to not be able to dial a number because I can’t spell. Just think how many wrong numbers there would be because people can’t spell!
Also, letters already have a number value (the gematria reference–that has nothing to do with the layout on the phone pad), so that would be even more confusing, no?
OK so I hate the phone number thing AND this jingle as much as the next olah BUT I have a confession to make. I don’t usually go around singing that jingle but it really came in handy 2 days ago when a forklift hit me at Rami Levi. I conjured up the number in my mind, called AIG (I have auto insurance with them) and they handled everything very professionally. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the folks at Rami Levi. THEY came across as a tribe of lying, theiving, thugs.
I TOTALLY sing that jingle in my head, haha!
And yes, that baby image is now burned painfully into my retinae. Thank you. Gah. Nightmares!
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I CAN’T believe that about the ‘phone number song’! That’s too funny! It’s like one of our best jokes/memories. Almost a comfort rhythm. Miss the land? Sing it.
Ha!
Your blog rocks.