Calculator spelling

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Calculator spelling (also known as beghilos; see Description, below) is a technique of spelling words by reading characters upside-down from calculators equipped with certain kinds of seven-segment displays. It is a form of transformation of text.

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[edit] Description

An unintended characteristic of the seven-segment display is that many numbers, when read upside-down, appear as letters of the Latin alphabet. Each digit can be mapped to a unique letter, creating a limited but functional subset of the alphabet, sometimes called the beghilos alphabet.

Letter: B E G h I L O S Z g
Digit: 8 3 9 4 1 7 0 5 2 6

On a calculator, this appears as:

Certain calculators omit the topmost stem on the digit "6" and the bottommost stem on the "9". In such cases, "6" renders a lowercase "q" when turned upside-down, and "9" appears as a lowercase "b".

Other variants of calculator spelling alphabets consider "6" (not used in the standard Beghilos) as a lowercase "g" (as opposed to uppercase represented by 9) and "9" as either a reversed lowercase "a" or an at sign (@), both of which represent the letter A.

Extending the available alphabet to hexadecimal notation, "b" and "d" correspond to "q" and "p" respectively. "F" transforms to either a "j" with a strike-through or a recognizable but reversed "t." A, C, and E do not transform readily to recognizable letters. C transforms to a reversed C, which is recognizable and distinct enough to the point where it can be used as C itself. E transforms to 3, which has little use, though it can be used on an ad hoc basis as a sideways M or W. Upside-down A has no recognizable correspondence to any standard Latin letter.

Using leet, additional letters can be represented by combinations of letters (11/II or 2 ["Z" being very rare in English] representing "two" or "to", 111/III representing "three", 15/SI, 935/SEa or 335/SEE for "C", etc.). This is generally rare and, especially in the last case (using a spelling-out of a letter) severely limits readability.

Only certain calculators are capable of being used for beghilos calculator spelling. LCD, VFD, LED, and Panaplex displays are best for spelling words. The ability of dot-matrix displays, fourteen-segment and sixteen-segment displays to render most characters, defeats the purpose of spelling with a limited alphabet.

[edit] Applications

Aside from novelty and amusement, calculator spelling has limited practicality. Students, in particular, are known to experiment with calculators to find what words are possible.

Digital manometer error code.

Calculator spelling can be used in programming as a form of textual feedback on devices with limited output ability. The programmer is given a wider set of letters to use and does not require the reader to turn the device upside-down. This is particularly useful in scientific calculators that feature hexadecimal readout using the letters A through F. Students often use this feature and an improved "alpha" feature that use the letters "A" through "Z" to write messages to each other, separating words by using the minus sign ("-").

One of the most common applications of beghilos calculator spelling is done by students, often when bored during a mathematics lesson. The 'original' attributed example of calculator spelling which dates from the 1970s,[1] is 5318008, which when turned over spells "BOOBIES". Other words include "Boobless", "Shell", "Shelloil", "Hello", "Hell" and many others. Using a scientific calculator with hex capability, this can be further improved, with the A–F keys and the "!" sign, to spell "b00b1E5!", without needing to rotate the display (a practice known as hexspeak); however, many calculators that use the seven-segment automatically calculate the factorial product when the "!" key is pressed. Another common example of calculator spelling is the sequence 0.7734 (when turned upside down, this becomes "hEllo").

Calculator spelling is also used in other languages. An example in Dutch is 707 + 707 = 1414. In calculator spelling this is LOL + LOL = hIhI. The word LOL means fun (in Dutch, it is also a Leet/SMS acronym for laughter) and hihi is the Dutch spelling for "heehee" (laughter). In Portuguese, 50135 (upside down 'SEIOS'), means 'breasts', and is directly analogous to the English "58008/BOOBS".

Hip hop slang applications include the sequence 3722145 which spells "SHIZZLE".

[edit] See also

[edit] Popular culture

  • The Dutch rock band 35007's name comes from the calculator-spelling of the word "Loose".
  • In The Fairly OddParents TV movie School's Out! The Musical Flappy Bob types 07734 on the calculator during the song "Where is the Fun?", which when turned upside down spells Hello.
  • In the Strong Bad Email "technology" on the popular Homestar Runner website, Strong Bad types in 530453080 to his calculator. When turned upside down this reads "Oboe shoes"

[edit] References

  1. ^ The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006), Eric Partridge, Tom Dalzell, Terry Victor, pp. 2160
  • Rechnerspielereien, 1973, Publisher Gundig (German); translates directly as "Calculator Games". (No ISBN or author available.)

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator_spelling"
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