P for Pterodactyl
S for Sea
W for Why
E for Eye
G for Gnu
J for Jalapeño
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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T as in tsunami.
P as in phone.
K as in knife or knee.
G as in gnostic.
X as in xylophone.
D as in djembe.
M as mnemonic.
O as in opossum in certain locales.
U as in updog
C for Czechoslovakia may be a slight improvement over my go-tos:
A for Antidisestablishmentarianism
B for Buckminsterfullerene
C for Counterrevolutionaries
A for 'Orses
B for mutton
C for yourself
etc
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.
T as in tardigrade
I was frustrated with the phone support agent and used ‘S, as in Stupid’ and I got hung up on.
N as in "pneumatic", U as in "eulogy", K as in "Québec"...
Okay, that's K, as in KY Jelly. O, as in OnlyFans. L as in Lo Wang. A as in Asshole. N as in...
C for [ˌt͡ʃɛ.kʰɪ.sl̥oʊ̯.ˈvɑ.kʰi.ə] (Yes I did narrow transcription for the purpose of making it look worse 💀)
My Battlefield 3 crew would designate objectives on voice coms as, "Ango, Bango, Chango, and Django".
Bingo Bango Bongo
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
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.
I once said Sierra and the guy wrote the letter C, because apparently he might be a physicist, but he was also an idiot
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.
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??
L for… um Lesbian? Was one of my favourites
Imagine calling support and only using sexual words to spell things.
"T for Terrorist"
The CS Representative I was talking to: "Sir, this is an Airline"
"Oh my bad, my bad ..
B for bomb. T for twin towers. N for nine eleven was a inside job."
Be sure to use L for Luigi when verifying info over the phone with your health insurance.
I once had a client tell me, "T as in... T."
Yeah, that was helpful.
I mean surely it was "T as in Tea"
Or maybe "T as in Tee"
alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot etc. it's SO HELPFUL when talking on the phone. I learned them all because no one could figure out my name.
TBF you could just tell them.
Foxtrot...? Is that some kind of furry thing????
:3
Always been a petty pet peeve of mine. When I was training customer service reps I'd hand out a sheet and suggest they nail it up in their cube.
So much easier when everyone's on the same page. The military uses the phonetic alphabet because it's crystal clear, even over sketchy coms.
Why would you make up some bullshit of your own, having to constantly stop and think about it, when the pros already have a working system?! FFS, you don't even have to make the effort to memorize it, just use it a few times, done, it's in your head forever. Now I'm getting mad. (Told you I was petty about this.)
Anyone know why they use "niner"? Doesn't seem to mix up with other numbers.
EDIT: That's 2 band names I came out with today.
Petty Pet Peeve™
Anal Rail Gun™
Niner is because it's the NATO phonetic alphabet, and they don't want it to get mixed up with nein.
What an odd take. Why should people memorize something they pretty much never need? Just because using a different word might inconvenience someone a tiny bit at some point in time?
If you talk to people on the phone for a living, yes, use a consistent and unambiguous system for reading out letters and numbers.
It's also beneficial for the customer to do so. Conversations go much faster when everyone is singing from the same sheet.
As to need? Do you never call for customer or tech support? There's always something that needs repeated or spelled out.