18. A system that embodies the method of claim 11 .
11. A method for conducting database searches by telephone, the method comprising: subdividing a master grammar set into multiple speech recognition grammars, each of which corresponds to a different sequence of N telephone keys; receiving from a user an indication of a sequence of N telephone keys corresponding to N characters of a search query; receiving from the user an utterance of the search query; selecting the speech recognition grammar that corresponds to the sequence of N telephone keys, said speech recognition grammar specifying valid utterances; and interpreting the utterance of the search query with the speech recognition grammar to convert the utterance into a textual representation of the search query; wherein the method is performed without requiring the user to uniquely specify said N characters; wherein N is less than the number of characters in the search query as uttered by the user, such that the user need not select a respective telephone key for each character of the search query; wherein the method is performed by a computerized system that comprises one or more computing devices.