I have never bought drinks, but I have paid for the food. My parents, aunts, and uncles all grew up in the Great Depression, and were very proud of the fact that they never took charity. The worst insult in their vocabulary was “freeloader”. At a restaurant, the person who picked up the tab had the biggest penis. The first time I paid for lunch, I really impressed my aunts and uncles.
For local calls?
– I can’t remember if I’ve ever bought drinks for a stranger; I’ve probably bought at least one round at some point. I’ve certainly given some away, including possibly to strangers; at least, if homemade alcoholic eggnog counts.
There have been some areas in the U.S., where, when they’ve added new area codes, they have done something called an “overlay,” in which two (or more) different area codes now serve the exact same geographic area. When this was done, one of the side effects had been that everyone in that area must always dial 1+area code, even when calling within their own area code.
This Wikipedia article on the topic indicates that this practice started in the 1990s, and that it’s been the standard approach for adding new area codes in the U.S. since 2007. This would suggest that there are some people out there who have had to always dial an area code for all calls for several decades.
Indeed. My wife speaks fluent Cantonese. She often tells the story of taking a language class in Mandarin in college, and finding it extremely difficult.
I’ve bought drinks for total strangers, but that was back in the day when I could hope that the stranger would become a very intimate friend before the end of the evening. 
A round for the table/group at the bar was not uncommon, and I bought a ‘round for the bar’ a couple of times when ‘the bar’ consisted of about four patrons.
Yes, for local calls, for decades.
I lived in NYC in 1992, when 917 was introduced as a new area code for cell phones. (I guess that’s not what technically happened, but it’s certainly how it was perceived.) But I’m pretty sure we had to dial 10 digits before that. We certainly did after that. And although I’ve since moved a couple of times, i think I’ve had to dial 10 digits ever since.
I remember my uncle, in North Jersey, had to dial 10 digits before anyone else i knew had to.
I’ve done all those things. Buying a round feels good.
A couple of weeks ago a total stranger paid for my drive-thru order. A couple of days later I had the chance to pass that on. Made someone’s morning.
Ah.
I didn’t mean to sound incredulous; I was just surprised. But of course the other factor is that ‘decades ago’ is a smaller percentage of my life than it used to be.
We were also an early overlay in North Dallas, and that was decades ago as well.
In the early, early days of the internet, one of my high school friends started a website detailing area codes including overlays…it was quite popular for a while (I see it’s still there, in fact, and that he’s contributed to the Wikipedia page you posted).
……………
I was at a concert last year, and as I worked my way back through the crowd to make a restroom run, a random guy joked “hey, bring me a beer if you don’t mind!”, and so I did.
I worked with some Chinese people and one day decided to learn their language. Learned the hard way that most of them spoke Cantonese, so I dug into it and learned some. Once you get comfortable with Cantonese, modern Mandarin has an unpleasant edge to its sound. That is probably a big reason she found it difficult.
I’ve bought many drinks, for strangers, friends, and on a few occasions for everyone at the bar, but only when it wasn’t very crowded.,
The first time ever I saw my gf, I got the bartender’s attention and sent her a drink, which she accepted. The rest is history.
I speak English, though I will learn a few phrases in whatever language is spoken when traveling. In a neighborhood Dutch bar in Sint Maarten I thanked the bartender for my drink in Dutch, getting huge laughs from everyone who heard, it was that badly mangled. One guy told me I sounded like his grandma after her stroke. It led, however, to hours of conversation about how crazy the language is.
I almost never socialize in bars, so I’ve never bought a round of drinks. I’ve bought food for other people, but that’s a different social dynamic, i think.
I ordered tickets for nine of the movies yesterday, and we’re seeing the 10th on Tuesday, so it was not difficult to name of the academy award nominees for best picture.
I could name the two teams in the Super Bowl, but they were talking about them on NPR’s Morning Edition literally at the same time I was taking the poll, so that might be considered cheating.
Of the Best Picture nominees, I could name:
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Anatomy of a Fall
The Zone of Interest
American Fiction
(Upon looking it up, I forgot Poor Things, Maestro, Past Lives, and The Holdovers)
One of the great pleasures of being settled old farts with a decent income is going out to eat with young people and being able to pick up the check. We love doing that as often as possible for the young adults we know. I’ve also gotten rounds of drinks, but the only time I’ve bought a total stranger a drink was when I was much younger. I was at a bar waiting for people, and a guy had sent me a drink and insisted the waiter being it back to me after I’d refused it. So I senthim one back with the message that our interaction was finished.
I rarely go to bars, but many restaurant serve drinks nowadays.
I wouldn’t quite go that far, but she was definitely hawt. I remember her from Meatballs, too - non-porn, but a much better movie.
Agreed. The poll didn’t say I had to quit my current job, which I really like.
Eh, it’s a Federation starship, a highly-advanced closed ecology. Everyone’s poop and pee has been so thoroughly scrubbed, sterilized and pushed through one-micron filters before becoming replicator raw material, it wouldn’t bother me at all.
Huh? Why?
I like to hear rain, crickets or other insects outside when I sleep with the window open in the spring or summer, but otherwise neither want nor need white noise.
“Alright” still looks wrong to me, and seems uncouth, but it’s certainly everywhere these days.
I’m willing to be a global tyrant, and think I could do some good. As the saying goes, power corrupts, and absolute power is actually pretty neat.
My all-time favorite epitaph, from a cemetery in my hometown, was by a widower to his late wife: Forty years with a tongue so sharp / O angels! Give her a harp.
My dad and sister in rural Ohio have, for about 20 years now, had to dial 11 digits, even just to call across the street. Here in the big city, we still only have to dial 7.
English is my first language and I think I speak it well. I took four years of high-school Spanish and have retained a few dozen words and phrases, but I couldn’t carry on a conversation in it. I also know a little Russian, German and French.
I’ve bought drinks for the whole table (“Next round’s on me!”), but never for strangers or the whole bar.
A lot of places had 988 prefixes, and as soon as the 988 emergency number was enabled, those phone numbers would no longer work without an area code. The options for those locations were to eliminate that prefix and change a bunch of phone numbers, decreasing the pool of available numbers, or to require 10-digit dialing.
I remember doing it in San Jose in the 1980s