Who started putting numbers into the middle of words? The next time a fire truck goes by, odds are pretty good that it will be labeled like
ENG9INE or
LAD1DER
Nobody else seems to do this, so I’m guessing the practice was started by a fire department somewhere - but who?
Num3ers. 2005
Murder by Numbers (2002)
aka “Murd3r 8y Num8ers” - USA (promotional title)
Se7en. 1995
Those are a bit different from the OP’s examples. In your examples, numbers are used in place of letters; in the OP’s examples, a number, meant to represent a number, is inserted into the middle of a complete word. The former seems like it’s mainly a recent phenomenon; the latter, I don’t know.
I used to spell my name as “Flo3ppy Joe”. The 3 is silent.
Tom Lehrer spoke of the philosophy Hen3ry in 1959.
Not as early as the other examples, and not exactly what the OP was looking for, but still neat: E5C4PE by Journey (1981) Cover art: Escape (Journey album) - Wikipedia
[/hijack]
That’s a cool collection of examples, but let me refine the question… Who was the first firefighter (or fire truck painter?) to come up with the idea of using ENG1INE instead of ENGINE 1?
Nitpick: E5C4P3.
That was actually my password for some stuff a long time ago.
Still not quite the same but…
Da5id, a character in Stephenson’s Snow Crash, 1992. The 5 in the middle is a replacement for the “v” usually found in David… the “v” being a Roman 5, so a number replacing a letter that is a number.
Still not the same as the firetrucks though…
Isn’t this actually “inter-word digits”?
Actually, I think it’s intra-word digits.
That made me think of the 1991 young adult novel, My Name is Sus5an Smith. The 5 Is Silent by Louise Plummer.
I’ve never seen this. Where do they do this?
It’s done that way around here, though I’m having a hell of a time finding any photographic evidence of it.
Is it something like
[sup]ENG[/sup] 54 [sup]INE[/sup]?
Cuz I could see how from a graphic standpoint, that would make some sense.
ETA: :smack: I could’ve sworn the OP’s initial post didn’t look that at first.
His is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need in these trying times of crisis and universal bruhaha.
In Rome, do they spell Engine 1 as EngIne?
:quickly tries to hack Knead’s account:
Shit. He ain’t that stupid…