11 Phone Terms Your Kids Will Never Know

by Sam Greenspan

I was talking to a friend recently and mentioned 10-10-220.

My guess is that a lot of people reading this have no idea what that is. For a brief window in the '90s, companies found some phone system loophole. If you dialed their special number - 10-10-220 is the one that stuck in my head, but there were others - you would bypass your own long distance carrier for one that was theoretically cheaper. As we were talking about it, I realized how confusing that speech would be in the future. Not because of the convoluted mess of numbers like 10-10-220 but because I'd also have to explain the concept of "long distance." I put together this list of 11 phone terms, besides long distance and 10-10-220, your kids will never know.

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