number name

   Number names can be heard on any Saturday afternoon in Britain during the football season, as the referee of a match talks to the players. It is accepted in such a situation that the referee cannot be expected to remember the names of twenty-two players with whom he will have contact for a very short time. If he wishes to call a player to him he will call him by the number that player has temporarily assumed.

   The practice no doubt extends to other team games. One might argue that it helps the referee to remain impartial if he uses numbers; he is not influenced by any previous acquaintanceship he may have with the person concerned. There is a comment from the player’s point of view in A Salute to the Great McCar-thy, by Barry Oakley, which has an Australian football setting: ‘The number on my back, 16. That’s me, that’s all you are now, a numeral.’

   Other temporary situations no doubt arise where a number is the most useful means of identification. Examination candidates are sometimes summoned into a room by number, parachutists or gymnasts in a line may be instructed when to move by this means.

   There are occasions when a number replaces a person’s name in a more permanent way. James Bond responds to ‘007’, for example, and is well-known under that numbernym. Slightly less permanent was the number that Lawrence of Arabia was given when he became an airman - 338171 - but this at least gave rise to a famous witticism of Noël Coward’s. Coward wrote Lawrence a letter which began ‘Dear 338171, or may I call you 338…?’ Charles Dickens furnishes us with examples of both kinds of number names. In Hard Times we have: ‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, ‘I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?’ Girl number twenty explains that she is Sissy Jupe, only to be told that she has no right to call herself Sissy, she must be Cecilia.

   In David Copperfield Mr Creakle, the magistrate, visits a prison and asks: ‘Well, Twenty-Seven, how do you find yourself today?’ Twenty-Seven says that he is ‘very “umble’, a remark which reveals him immediately to be Uriah Heep. The incident is a reminder of Dr Manette, in A Tale of Two Cities: ‘Did you ask me for my name?’ ‘Assuredly I did.’ ‘One Hundred and Five, North Tower,’ replies Dr Manette, who had been a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen years.

   Two more Dickensian number names are to be found in The Pickwick Papers. Mr Jingle says to a cabman: ‘Here, No. 924, take your fare, and take yourself off.’ Much later in the novel there is a prisoner in the Fleet Prison who is addressed as ‘Twenty’, or ‘Tventy’ as Sam Weller pronounces it. This is because he carries in his pocket a piece of card which he presents to new acquaintances. It bears no name, simply his ‘address’ within the prison, No. 20, Coffeeroom Flight.

   Number names are less used now than in former times, when policemen might be addressed by their superiors as PC 49, or whatever. In short-lived, specialized situations, however, such as those described above, they continue to serve a useful purpose. See also the O.Henry quote at Waiter.