Why do most telephone numbers in US TV series look amusing to Thai viewers but sad to Chinese viewers?

zbeckabee

In North America, telephone numbers with the prefix 555 are widely used for fictitious telephone numbers in television shows, films, computer games, and other media. 555 in Thai reads Ha Ha Ha -- 5 is spoken as Ha. 555 in Chinese represents sobbing -- 5 in Chinese is “wu” so 555 is like “wuwuwu” which resembles the sobbing lingo. http://superduperlove.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/random-post-some-recent-ufo-town-replies/ http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/6a3cd/797/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_(telephone_number) Mar 06 09, 8:26 PM

McGruff

If you've always wondered why all fictional television numbers begin with 555, or Klondike-5 in older shows, this explains it pretty well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_(telephone_number) The 555 exchange was reserved for telephone company use, the standard number for information being (area code) 555-1212. At the same time, all area codes had 0 or 1 as the middle digit, and local exchanges never had a 0 or 1 as the middle digit. In the 80's there was an explosive need for second household lines for computers and fax machines, home offices, children's lines and what-not, that this became numerically impossible and "only 555-0100 through 555-0199 are now specifically reserved for fictional use, with the other numbers having been released for actual assignment." Mar 06 09, 10:58 PM