“K for knight, P for pterodactyl, G for gnome”
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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I'm all about that NATO phonetic alphabet - which for some reason rubs certain people answering phones the wrong way.
Can't say I don't have a couple substitutions, though (Zebra instead of Zulu, Sam instead of Sierra, Frank instead of Foxtrot), but it's not like I'm working the radio of an aircraft or something.
The NATO phonetic alphabet does make some intersting choices. Sierra being particularly bad because over a poor quality radio it can sound a lot like "zero." the WWII American phonetic alphabet used "sugar." Able Baker indeed.
I once said Sierra and the guy wrote the letter C, because apparently he might be a physicist, but he was also an idiot
Maybe a fan of singer songwriter Ciara, with her song 1-2 step.
TBH "Sierra" is a pretty obscure word. I didn't know about it until the Mac OS release with that name. And given how often "c" makes an "s" sound, that sounds like a reasonable mistake to make if you've never heard the word before.
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Sam and Frank are quite similar
Unrecognisable letter - a - m or n, very similar - unrecognisable could be both (say when it's loud and you're talking)
Sierra and Foxtrot are very different and that's what matters
Bam, Cam, Dam, Fam, Ham, Jam, Lam(b), Ma'am, Pam, Ram, W(h)am
Bank, Dank, Gank, Hank, Jank, Lank, Rank, Sank, Tank, Wank
Yeah.. not great options, those.
Bam, Cam, Dam, Fam, Ham, Jam, Lam(b), Ma'am, Pam, Ram, W(h)am
Whoa, Black Betty!
Bramble jam??
Understood, but these were selected based on what seems to work for your average customer service person/office worker. The amount of times I've said 'Sierra' and got back C is too many.
Might re-think Frank over Foxtrot, though. That's more habit than anything else.
Agreed in other contexts these are not the best choices, and there's a reason they are not that in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Easy. A is for apple B is for bapple C is for capple ...
A few months ago I expended the effort and learned that goddamn alphabet. Guess what? Haven’t needed it since. All gone.
I learnt it to work in a call centre ten years ago and can still remember them all with a bit of effort, but I still don't know the Dutch one, which is more likely to come in handy now and is all people's names.
It's useful when you're talking to somebody on a bad line who doesn't really understand English all that well. Such as when you're trying to cancel your ISP, because they are always in India.
Count your blessings, sucks having to get on the phone and play the spelling game
Years ago I was on the phone with an airline agent and I had to read out my verification number. When I came to the letter V my brain short circuited and the only word I could think of was "vagina". I sat there in a panic for probably about 10 seconds going "uhhh... uhhh..." before I finally remembered the word "valentine".
M as in Mancy?
I worked in a call centre about 10 years ago. one time some old, presumably white, old woman called in and when spelling her name included "N for N****r"
I was dumbfounded
We had those old alphabet books in school where N was "neger"
I believe the print date was around the 1950s. They were placed on bookshelves in classroms full of old books that i guess they never bothered to throw out.
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Hawaiian comedian Frank De Lima told a joke about a Filipino announcer saying somebody needed to move their car, license plate B for Bictory, L for Elephant, Q for Cucumberrrrrrr...
Love my copy of "P is for Pterodactyl". Great book, very uneducational.
E for Eye
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The police rang my house once, and he told me where I could reach them, and spelled out his name. I started writing his name out, but by the fourth name, I was thinking wtf is going on. This guy was spelling out his name by using names for each letter. A for Alex, B for Bob.
Standard for police is to use the NATO phonetic alphabet simply because it's what everybody uses and it avoids confusion rather than it necessarily been the best system.
For example prior to the NATO phonetic alphabet the UK military used to have their own, so perhaps that's where they got it from?
I think it was
Apple.
Bob
Candle.
Can't remember what D was.
Elizabeth
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My Battlefield 3 crew would designate objectives on voice coms as, "Ango, Bango, Chango, and Django".
Sounds a little.. unchained
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P for Pterodactyl
S for Sea
W for Why
E for Eye
G for Gnu
J for Jalapeño
G for Gnu
TIL English doesn't pronounce the G in gnu. Wild language.
G as in gnome.
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I can remember one time:
"P for Potato",
"B for... err... i dunno, Botato?".
Potato
Botato
Brother the explicit purpose of the phonetic alphabet is to make all of the letters audibly distinguishable by ensuring none of them rhyme
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I love using animals when I do this.
How do you make the animals speak ?
Text often leaves out subtle nuance. In this case, imagine op making a hand gesture something like shaking ketchup out of a bottle.
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I had too many customers get confused when I asked, "and that is pudenda spelled P as in Papa, U as in Uniform..." customer interrupts, "why are you talking like a radio?"
Had a regular that would spell it in NATO, and said he served in artillery. Heard just fine on his good ear, tinittus was just a low hum.
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C for [ˌt͡ʃɛ.kʰɪ.sl̥oʊ̯.ˈvɑ.kʰi.ə] (Yes I did narrow transcription for the purpose of making it look worse 💀)
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