M as in Mancy
LANA
MAWP
Jesus, the helium!
K as in Knowlege G as in Gnome M as in Mnemonic P as in Pterodactyl W as in Wrist
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Please use this and don’t make up your own shit on the fly. It’s very understandable both as a rep and a customer.
In a phone conversation with a vendor they interrupted me while spelling to say something like "oh thank God you’re using the normal one and not shit like ‘frankfurter’ "
O as in opossum, p as in pnumonia, c as in Chicago.
K as in knight
Yeah it evolved to where it is now, no more changes.
WE COULD HAVE HAD QUACK FOR Q??? we were robbed
A better choice. If you have Fench Canadians in the forces it is Q as in Kaybec
What were they on with “interrogatory” for a damn vowel.
When both ends of a conversation are comfortable using the phonetic alphabet, you can easily hit 2+ characters per second, accurately.
Beautiful, though they didn’t really describe dd well
Not sure about why people are surprised by this alphabet. It’s been in use for quite some time in its current form. I work in aviation and we always use this for radio communications. Obviously the military does too.
🎵Foxtrot… Uniform… Charlie… Kilo…! 🎶
(Bloodhound Gang song)
Put the you know what, in the you know where.
I can’t remember this guide but I remember the Android Phonetic Alphabet
- Alpha
- Beta
- Cupcake
- Donut
- Eclair
- Froyo
- Gingerbread
- Honeycomb
- Ice Cream
- Jelly Bean
- KitKat
- Lollipop
- Marshmallow
- Nougat
- Oreo
- Pie
- Quiche
- Red Velvet
- Sugar Cookie
- Tiramisu
- Upside Down Cake
- Vanilla
- Waffle
There are no other letters
Pretty sure it’s Ice Cream Sandwich for I.
Fuck me if someone tells me over the phone:
Cupcake, Upside down cake, Marshmallow
Quiche doesn’t really work, but otherwise it’s not bad.
“M, as in Mancy!”
When I was a kid, I was in a clan for Battlefield Vietnam that took itself waaaaay too seriously, had a good number of JROTC kids that insisted we all needed to know this, the NATO phonetic alphabet.
We were using teamspeak, had a session where the group leader stood us all in a line, and one by one wanted us to sound it off.
Guy 1: Alpha!
Guy 2 (me): Bravo!
Guy 3: Catholic!
Group Lead: sighs
shoots Guy 3 in the face
It is 100% more fun to make them up yourself though
This alphabet was carefully designed to minimize the chance of confusion. I’d rather be accurate than fun.
… I don’t get invited to many parties.
In my experience I always have issues with “S as in Sierra” because most people don’t know what the hell Sierra is. Because they are uncultured heathens.
M as in Mama though, I always use that one.
This is all fun and games until someone says “M as in Mancy”
A as in Aye
E as in Ewe
S as in Sea
W as in Why
100% agree. I often have fun with customer service or whatever coming up with fun words.
There is a fun one based on the periodic table.
It includes things like P as in Lead and A as in Gold
X is X-ray??
And F is Foxtrot but not just Fox??
Am I the only that thinks this is crazy?
It was designed like that for a reason. There’s a lack of one syllable words there, and the ones that are there sound very different. It’s also used for messages that require precision that the average person doesn’t need in day to day life.
“Fox” could be confused with “box”, so it goes with “Foxtrot”.
Also, keep in mind that everything is a product of its time.
Fox could also be misheard in other languages, not just box.
The old joke about telling your German counterpart about nine tanks coming over the hill and all that.
Not really, but it makes sense to me.
I learned the phonetic alphabet partly because of the fact that I obtained my amateur radio operator qualification. I’m a “ham” radio person.
Hearing these on the radio, which isn’t super clear to begin with in most cases, it’s much easier to use this way and almost trivial to understand others when they spell anything over the radio. Given this is the NATO alphabet, it’s used by all kinds of people, from ham operators like me, to government/military. Often in conjunction with some kind of communications system, often but not always radio communications, where the signal might be poor.
I think the original intent was to ensure that all letters sounded as unique as possible, so even if you only catch part of the word (maybe the rest is obfuscated by static), you still understand the what was said.
I prefer x as in xylophone myself
When I worked IT helpdesk I created my own one of these. Others photocopied it, they were photocopied. Years later I dropped in and saw one of the new staff with my phonetic alphabet stuck to the side of his screen. (I think they were also still using my mainframe login ID)
I had a similar thing happen to me. People saw mine, and pretty soon 5-10% of the office had one.
I have no idea what it is with the letter “I” that throws me off. I’ve been using this alphabet since I joined the military ~15 years ago, and for some reason “I” still turns into “Igloo”, “Indigo” or “Israel” most of the time. It’s just that one singular letter that I can never remember!
For me it’s Quebec and Kilo, even after more than 15 years in aviation.
Like for spelling my handle here, my first reflex is to say Sierra Quebec uniform…Uuuh no, Sierra Kilo Uniform November Kilo.
Glad to know it’s not just me! Kilo and Quebec makes sense, given that both start with that hard K sound and theyre both words associated with the NATO alphabet. I could easily see struggling with that one too if not for the Bloodhound Gang teaching me “Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo” early on in my youth.
Ah, Kebek! Make sure to try the pooteen!
Pretty sure “Indigo” was used in either a previous version or another phonetic alphabet. NATO’s isn’t the only one. I think some police forces still use “Abel, Baker…”
My favorite is asking a call Rep if I can switch to phonetic, and then rattling off the spellings when given the go ahead.
The only reason I have it drilled into my head is because the warehouse I work at uses voice for confirming locations.
The only one I don’t like is Z is for Zulu. I’ve never heard of that word before and it could easily be mistaken for Hulu. Z should be changed to Zebra.
Zebra is much closer to Sierra and Papa, than Zulu is to any other word in that list - they are specifically chosen to be distinctly understandable in difficult-to-hear situations. And should they change it every time a new brand gets popular that’s kinda similar to one of the words?
I see. I’ve seen “zero” as well, and I also like that alternative.
Unfortunately that has overlap with Echo.
Ideally, these words are distinct even when most of the audio data is missing (as tends to happen with very bad connections/dropped packets). Worst case is only the “vocal” sounds coming through, as those are very common. Some people pronounce “zero” similarly to how “echo” is pronounced. “Zulu” has no such overlap.
Zulu could have been different, but has “no” (read:minimized) risk of being mistaken for hulu because hulu is not part of the phonetic alphabet. The phonetic alphabet is standardized because it must be, you can find rhymes for any one of these words. No list could be reasonably constructed that wouldn’t. Therefore the only reasonable choice is a standardized list that is designed to not self rhyme.
Average Canadian: “Oh yeah, I got this one easy bud!”
Alright, for your final test: how do you spell Quebec?
AC: “Oh, for sure, that one there is easy! It’s, uh… Q, for… uh…”
…
AC: “Q… for… Kay-beck…”
Great fishin’ in Kew-beck
C’est facile non?
I memorized it on my commute to work. I taped it to my dash and practiced on the license plates of the cars on the highway. I took it off my dash once I could read street signs out loud before passing them.
Instructions unclear, stuck under the twisted metal of my vehicle. Send paramedics.
