This has bugged me for years. How do the phone companies deal with 1-800 numbers followed by some company’s name, for example, “1-800-scott-evil”?* There are an two extra digits there. Are the extra digits just ignored and truncated by the phone switchers, or do they “count” as part of the number? By that I mean, could you dial “1-800-scott-ev” and reach the same number because the last two digits were extraneous? 
The phone routing system has interested me ever since I heard about Captain Crunch, of blue box/Wozniak/Jobs fame. (I know it’s changed since then, but those stories of his are totally cool.)
- 1-800-scott-evil is not intended to be a real telephone number, and if it is, it’s your own fault for calling it.
The extra digits don’t count. Obviously the numbers are given that way because it makes them easier to remember.
Haj
This reminds me of something a certain company did once, which struck me as rather silly. I don’t know how to tell the story without giving away the number, so let me attest that I am not encouraging anyone to call it.
Anyway, the mattress-selling company in question had managed to procure 1-800-628-8737, and was advertising it as 1-800-MATTRES. “Drop the last S for savings!” they encouraged their potential customers. I think they eventually wised up to the ways of telecommunications, because several months later I heard them advertising their number simply as 1-800-MATTRESS.
The switches count digits - if you are old enough, you remember when all area codes (NPA - National Prefix Areas, in ATT-speak) had a ‘1’ or ‘0’ as the second digit - that told the switch that it was getting a 10-digit number, and not to dial after the first 7 digits.
To verify - dial slowly - when does the dial tone change to a ringing sound? Right after the 1/area code/trunk number/line number.
Any/all digits after that are ignored.