BBQ (1951)

[James A. Landau]

In the early 1980's the proprietor of a barbeque establishment sued his local
phone company to have them place the letter "Q" on the dials/keypads of their
telephones so that he could have a phone number that would spell out the
title of his main sales item.  I don't know what became of the suit.  The news
article I read quoted the phone company's attorney as commenting on the
impossible logistics of the plaintiff's request.  Apparently it did not occur to the
phone company that there is no "q" in "barbecue".

          - James A. Landau

PS.  The following is a true story; I have seen the listing in question.

Also circa 1980 a local phone company (I believe it was Indiana Bell), in
order to make sure that their customers knew how to reach them, listed themselves
in their own phone directory under six different names, including "Telephone
Company", "Phone Company", and---da duh---"Fone Company".