I am in the process of packing up to move house and spent several hours this afternoon ringing round all the companies who need to know my change of address. Having a name which has ‘bs’ and ‘fs’ and ‘vs’ in, there is plenty of margin, however clearly one speaks, for errors of spelling etc.
Therefore I always spell things out using the Phonetic Call Sign Alphabet as used by the police, NATO etc. It really does make things easier and is worth learning if you often have to spell things out over the ‘phone. I learned it when I worked on a constructions site at Heathrow Airport and we had to communicate over crackly radios with the sound of jets roaring away in the background.
The BBC website explains why we use it. “This alphabet was created by the NATO allies in the 1950s as a means of communication that would be intelligible and pronounceable in the heat of battle. All the letters sound different, so there is no confusion over long distances over what people are saying. The reason that any phonetic alphabet is (or was) used is because telephone, radio and walkie-talkie communications had the habit of crackling over long distances, blotting out whole words or even sentences.
The normal alphabet cannot be used, because some letters, for example P, B, C and D sound similar, and over long distances were indistinguishable, so a new method had to be found. When the code was invented it was also considered that consonants are the most difficult to hear against a noisy background. Hence the sequence of vowels in the phonetic code played an important role when the code was invented, so that when you hear a noisy ‘-oo-oo’ you know the letter is a Z. The vowel-sequence thing works for most (though not all) combinations of letters.
All of the words are recognisable by native English speakers because English must be used upon request for communication between an aircraft and a control tower whenever two nations are involved, regardless of their native languages. But it is only required internationally, not domestically, thus if both parties to a radio conversation are from the same country, then another phonetic alphabet of that nation’s choice may be used.”
I did battle with 18 call centres today and I can assure you that it works.
| A = Alpha | H = Hotel | O = Oscar | V = Victor |
| B = Bravo | I = India | P = Papa | W = Whisky |
| C = Charlie | J = Juliet | Q = Quebec | X = X-Ray |
| D = Delta | K = Kilo | R = Romeo | Y = Yankee |
| E = Echo | L = Lima | S = Sierra | Z = Zulu |
| F = Foxtrot | M = Mike | T = Tango | |
| G = Golf | N = November | U = Uniform |
There is also a protocol for numbers:
| 1 = Wun | 2 = Two | 3 = Tree | 4 = Fower | 5 = Fife |
| 6 = Six | 7 = Sefan | 8 = Ait | 9 = Niner | 0 = Zero |
Wartime Housewife 
This is the most widely used set and the right one to know, but as a radio ham I’ve come across many variations including widely used informal ones such as: America, Boston, Canada … X-ray, Yokohama, Zanzibar.
And it used to be good sport to make amusing phrases from each others’ callsigns e.g. G3WOQ would be “Golf Three Weird Or Queer”.
I’m still not sure how I should pronounce ‘Quebec’: Kwee-bek, Kebek.
I currently favour the latter French pronunciation as it is how it sounds in ‘Québécois’ but I think many Brits regard this as pointedly odd on my part.
I remember at the end of one local radio society meeting, one of the members stood up to leave and said “I left a job half done at home so I shall wish you all a very good evening and now I will Foxtrot Oscar!”
Orlando.
Orlando: What fun! It’s like the car number plate game – trying to make sentences out of the letters.
It’s a funny thing about the pronunciation of foreign place names; we don’t say Parree or Mernchen and yet we’ve taken to saying Mumbai and Beijing. The English have always anglicised everything just as other countries do in their own languages so it’s interesting which place names we chose to pronounce like the natives.
The BBC has a pronunciation unit which often advises the news presenters and I’m sure I’ve they’ve explained the thinking behind their recommendations on some show like Points of View. I’ve forgotten their response.
I don’t know why the British should be so picky over what place names we choose to pronounce correctly. Even worse, we have our own ways of pronouncing names like St John, Cholmondley and Beauchamp.
There’s a village in Cumbria called Torpenhow. The name appears to be a concatenation of ‘tor’, ‘pen’ and ‘how’ (all of which mean ‘hill’). However West Cumbrians pronounce ‘Torpenhow’, ‘Truppenna‘.
I once met a delightful French girl who introduced herself with a name I heard as ‘Ann-yes’. I was strangely disappointed when subsequently I saw the name written down as ‘Agnes’.
Orlando.
As a child, living in an obscure and isolated part of the Yorkshire dales, I was often asked by the flustered occupants of passing cars “can you tell us the way to mash ham?”.
I knew they meant Masham (mass-um) and would mischievously adopt an even broader accent (my Grandad’s) to give directions.
O.S.M. B:53
Always had to spell my, not that unusual, Irish surname even when I lived in England. In America (rolling of eyes!!!)…F is for Frank!!!
Vinogirl: does ‘K’ = Kennedy?
Having watched films like The Dambusters and Angels One Five far too often and worked with ex-RAF types who used the same lingo, I tend to use the phonetic alphabet of that vintage – Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox etc.
Give me a Popsie over a Papa any day.
It might explain why I have so much trouble with the overseas call centres.
Bravo.
I do the same when spelling out my address or surname over the ‘phone. I learnt the call sign alphabet when I was a kid via my cousin, who was into CB radios – and its stayed with me all these years!
Thanks for the pukka list, WH. I always use Mother for M and Noddy for N because I can never remember the right call signs!
Oh, and Orlando, I would use the French pronunciation for Quebec (haven’t mastered accents on my new iPad!).
Récemment, lorsque j’ai visité un hôpital, j’ai rencontré une infirmière auxiliaire français qui était très agréable et nous avons parlé de la musique populaire. Malheureusement il n’y avait aucune possibilité pour moi d’essayer mon français très mauvaise car nous étions toujours en compagnie des autres.
Je parlais des chanteurs, Mylène Farmer et Claire Pelletier et elle m’a dit, «Je ne sais pas Claire Pelletier. Est-elle française?»
«Non, Québécoise».
Orlando.
The problem is that I can never think of Quebec now without remembering the scene from Mike Myers’ film ‘The Love Guru’ where Jaqcues ‘Le Coq’ Grande makes a ‘Quebec Pizza’ for his woman which turned out to be a Pop Tart with ketchup.
I frequently use this, as I am Inqusitrix for a local Quiz team, most of the members of which are more than a little deaf so I always have to spell things for them. Bless them.
Toffeeapple – do you really call yourself an Inquisitrix? Honestly? I think I may be a little in love!!! Wonderful. I used to be part of a team who ran quiz nights at a village hall and I really, really wish I’d thought of ‘Inquisitrix’.
You reminded us about making a Will in the post about The Millenium Trilogy (I have and it didn’t feel weird at all, thinking about something that would happen after I’ve shuffled off).
But I’m afraid I did snigger a little when the solicitor referred to my female executor as an ‘executrix’.
Orlando.
You need to talk to Toffeeapple who has declared herself an ‘Inquisitrix’. What an interesting bunch of people visit this site!!
We were told that the other reason for standardisation of pronunciation as well as of the word used, was to make it more difficult for the enemy to track the location of military units as they move around, by direction finding on a radio op who might have recognisable verbal idiosyncrasies.
Damned cunning, those furriners.
What a great post! In Italy it’s the names of cities, so A = Ancona, B = Bologna and so forth except for J and K and Y which don’t exist and X and Z which are impossible, but then that’s Italy for you.
Of course, one of the fun things about the NATO phonetic alphabet is being able to swear in polite society 😉 I once worked for a dear old Army Colonel whose favourite phrase of indignant outrage was “Whisky Tango Foxtrot”. I have been known to use it on occasion in front of small children as they haven’t got a clue what I’m on about…….
My mother told the story of a friend who had learned some Chinese, specifically so she could cuss in such circumstances. One day she came back to find a traffic warden writing out a parking ticket for her car, and she unleashed a tirade. When she finally paused for breath, the traffic warden replied, ‘Madam, I was twenty years in the Hong Kong police; and you’re no lady.’
I don’t know either!
You’ve got me there English Rose – Ah! No you haven’t I’ve just got it: What the f…?
Philip: What a great story – I hope they had a laugh about it afterwards.