Texting

A Maths Starter of The Day

As Mary wasn't at school today, her teacher decided to send her the homework by text message using his mobile phone. Unfortunately the teacher did not know how to use the predictive text facility so the wrong words were sent. Can you figure out the correct answers?

Predictive Text entry,  allows you to enter text by pressing only one key per letter. As you enter a word, the phone will automatically compare all of the possible letter combinations against a built in dictionary of words, and determine which word you intended to type. When it guesses incorrectly, you will get the type of result seen here. Other words have been substituted for he ones we want.

 

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Answers

One + Five = 6
Three x Eight =
24
Forty Six x Eight =
368
Nine x Forty Four =
396

Words produced by the same combination of keypresses are often referred to as "textonyms". This was the method coded messages were sent in the Sam Bourne novel "The Righteous Men".

The Righteous Men is also available as an audio cassette.

Alternative Answers

663 + 3483 = 4146
84733 x 34448 =
2918882384
36789749 x 34448 =
1267333273552
6463 x 367893687 =
2377696899081