Jim wants to call his friend Bob. Bob's Phone number is 976-6419. Jim dialed this number perfectly but then ended up calling the wrong house. He tried again and dialed the number perfectly. Once again his call didn't go through, in fact his call never went through to Bob.

Why couldn't Jim call Bob?

I will agree with Gamer’s comment.  The trick problem had the material into making a good problem, yet, alas, as with so many puzzles there exists a failure in the needed wording to achieve greatness.

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The problem with Alan’s “Telephone Call” is that the trick is not in finding a solution to a trick, but in presenting a trick answer.  The answer to the question “Why couldn’t Jim call Bob?” being, “Because Jim kept dialing the number “WRONG”.  One of the alphabetic equivalences of the phone number 976-6419 begins WRO-NG....

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One should note that the alphabet to digit allocation has been different in different locations of the world. For instance, in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the letters O and Q were allocated to the digit 0 (zero). In <st1:place w:st="on">North America</st1:place>, O was assigned to the digit 6 (with M and N) and Q to the digit 7 (with P, R and S). Many puzzle posters fail to realize or remember, even though the puzzles are written in English, the United States in not the only nation that uses English as a language, and, in fact, these puzzles are open to puzzlers throughout the world.

Posted by Dej Mar on 2008-03-31 06:32:31