willclarke.net

I got in a discussion the other day with my friend Eli, who is a frequent T9 texter, about words that have the same T9 codes. He was wondering what the longest two words are that have the same T9 code.

For those that don’t know, T9 is a text input method for phones that just have a 9 digit keypad. You can read more about it here on wikipedia. But in our discussion, I realized I could easily use the word database I use for my Scrabble iPhone web app to answer this question. I told him I’d do this; I don’t think he believed me. He was wrong.

First, I added a new integer field to the database table of words. This would hold the T9 value for each word. Then I wrote a script to convert all the words in the DB to their T9 counterparts, e.g. IRREFLEXIVE to 47733539483. Then I searched for words that have the same T9 codes.

Unfortunately a lot of words in the dictionary are very similar - for example “photosensitizer” and “photosensitizes.” Those are both 15 letter words, but they are basically the same word. So I realized what I wanted is long words that are significantly different from each other. I wrote a script that found all of the longest duplicates, and then compared them character by character for similarities. I then eliminated all the words that only have one character that’s different. Here’s what I found.

There are only two 15 character pairs of words with the same T9 code and more than one letter different. They are Repeatabilities / Resectabilities (in T9, 737328224548437) and Defectivenesses / Effectivenesses (333328483637737). There is a 14 character pair that have three characters different, Gamesomenesses and Handsomenesses (in T9, 42637663637737). It starts to get more satisfying at 13 characters, where you have the T9 code 2667874284667 spelling either Compurgations or Constrictions (five letters different). Most diverse is the ten character pair Housemaids / Intrenches, with a whopping eight letters different.

Of course that is just T9 pairs. If you go back and search based on number of matches, you can also find some interesting stuff. For example, it you type 22737 into your phone, it might explode. There are 13 different five letter words for that code: Acres, Bards, Barer, Bares, Barfs, Baser, Bases, Caper, Capes, Cards, Carer, Cares, and Cases. Also, there are 11 words for the six letter T9 code 727437: Parges, Paries, Pashes, Raphes, Rapids, Rapier, Rasher, Rashes, Sarges, Sashes, and Scries.

In T9-speak these are all called “textonyms” - words with the same T9 code. T9 sorts the textonyms by frequency of use in order to give you the best word, but as many frequent T9ers know, it gets things wrong a lot. If I could get a database of word frequency, I could find the longest textonyms with high frequency, and that might be fun.

Or everyone could just get an iPhone.

If you’re interested in the data, here are a couple links to the scripts I used:
Textonym Pairs (only 2 matching words)
Most Textonyms (most numbers of matches for a single T9 code)

It’s been a wonderful three months. I haven’t updated my blog since I stopped working in May because I have been traveling, reading, biking, and generally having a great time. Those following me on Facebook are probably pretty well acquainted with my adventures (if they haven’t completely filtered me out of their feed - sorry guys!) but for the uninitiated, here’s what I’ve been up to:

• Biking 500 miles from central Virginia to New York
• Spending countless hours at the Smithsonian Museums in Washington DC
• Learning about Baltimore with my foxy female sidekick
• Catching up with friends living in New York and performing stand-up comedy with Cody
• Visiting Seattle with the aforementioned foxy female
• Writing iPhone applications and learning Objective-C
• Reading books about finance, politics, and food - specifically, The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman, The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

So teacher, there’s my report (albeit bulleted) on what I did this summer. In the process of traveling from place to place, I used almost every vehicle known to humankind, including train, light rail, subway, bike, bus, plane, ferry, kayak, canoe, and of course the ever-pervasive automobile.

I could reflect endlessly on the relative virtues of each travel option. In fact, I plan to do just that in the coming weeks, and tap out my thoughts on our myriad options for people-moving. But for this summary post, I simply want to say this: travel, regardless of the method, is an adventure, and adventure is fraught with peril. Mass transit has delays; mechanical devices break; passengers are different from you and often smell. If you can’t deal with that, stay home. But if you can roll with the punches you’re in for a hell of a good time.

Unfortunately, I noticed recently that I’m running out of money. So I am going to start looking for a job in September. My lease is up soon at the apartment I technically live in, and I’m looking for a place to move. And I’m thinking nine years in Atlanta may be enough.