And as a starting solution, here's mine at 133 characters: 
my @d = qw( respect strength ); # yeah, weak dictionary, sue me!
my $n = "7377328";
my %a = ( 1=>[],
          2=>['a','b','c'],
          3=>['d','e','f'],
          4=>['g','h','i'],
          5=>['j','k','l'],
          6=>['m','n','o'],
          7=>['p','q','r','s'],
          8=>['t','u','v'],
          9=>['w','x','y','z']
    );

my @r = words( $n, \%a, \@d );
print join ",",@r;
print "\n";

sub words{
#234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
+123456789012345678901234567890123
my($n,$a,$d,@l,@b,$c,$e)=@_;@b=split//,$n;@a=('');for(@b){$c=$_;@a=map
+{$e=$_;map{$e.$_}@{$a->{$c}}}@a};
grep{$c=$_;grep{$c eq$_}@$d}@a
}

[download]

Note that if %a was an array, it would only change a set of curly braces to square ones, and would not change the character count.

update ok, this only handles the case of matching exactly one word from the dictionary; more work would be needed to find any word combo.

Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain

In reply to Re: (Golf) mobile phone numbers - words by Masem
in thread (Golf) mobile phone numbers -> words by mischief

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.