Word: ddd
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...grebe's problems began in the late '40s when the local mosquito abatement district sprayed thousands of pounds of DDD, a chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticide, on Clear Lake to rid the area of swarms of buzzing black gnats. The chemical, a close cousin of DDT, worked so well that developers previously put off by the gnats began building houses around the lake...
Unhappily, after an absence of several years, the gnats returned. In 1954 and again in 1957, stronger doses of DDD killed them off. About the same time, the lake's population of grebes began to decrease, dropping from 1,000 pairs to only 20 within one year. The baffling change was explained in 1962 by Rachel Carson, in Silent Spring. Grebes, she wrote, feed mainly on fish. The fish, in turn, eat insect larvae and zooplankton, and these foods had become saturated with the DDD dumped into Clear Lake. Thus, over a long period, the grebes accumulated lethal amounts...
...exchanges like PRospect 1 up through PRospect 9, there are still only 540 combinations available. This was more than enough until Direct Distance Dialing came on the scene in 1951. The U.S. is now divided into 105 code areas, each having its own three-digit number; within any single DDD area, no two telephone numbers can be the same-and simple mathematics shows that 540 central offices are not enough for some of the more populous dialing areas...
...telephone problem, already ushered in with the era of DDD, and one which ANC can only make more acute: playful tots who want to "call Daddy at the office" and end up dialing a number in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (code...
...phone company is presently bending over backward to be nice in such in stances, but the DDD honeymoon may not last forever. In the not-too-distant time when any idly spun combination of seven numbers will ring somebody, some where, stern household telephone discipline will be needed, or Daddy's phone bills may be in seven figures...