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The <i>de facto</i> phonetic alphabet

A list of 9 words by pterodactyl.

About

Part of my job involves taking people's names over the phone, which in most cases means they have to spell it for me (unless it's something easy like "Wilson"). Now, spelling over the phone is often unintelligible, which is why phonetic alphabets such as this one exist. In real life, people usually tend to say things like "'S' as in 'Sam'" to get their meaning across over a crackly connection.

But here's the interesting part: working this job, I've noticed that nearly everyone uses the same phrases for this purpose. S's are always "Sam", V's are always "Victor", and so on. I'm baffled as to where this uniformity comes from.

(The only exception to this list, so far, has been one woman who spelled her name using "'S' as in 'sunshine'". I was so startled that I nearly broke my pencil.)

Comments

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  • Prolagus commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    hey 'ter, your words can't be clicked!

    May 2, 2008

  • pterodactyl commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    Oh dear. It seems we can't use quotation marks in words. I'll have to fix that as soon as I get a chance.

    May 2, 2008

  • pterodactyl commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    There. All better now.

    May 2, 2008

  • Prolagus commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    In Italian, everyone uses the same words too - usually. I'll write them all someday.

    May 2, 2008

  • cranewang commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    c as in cat

    May 2, 2008

  • trivet commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    When I was growing up, our address was box 2AA. To avoid our mail ending up in box 288, my mother always gave the address as "box 2AA, as in two alcoholics anonymous"

    May 3, 2008

  • dontcry commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    Pro, what is "K" for in Italian?

    May 3, 2008

  • Prolagus commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    ...not for persimmon head.

    I was thinking about it just few minutes ago, instead of working. Our basic alphabet does not include J K W X Y, so I guess we use foreign words. But I have to think about it a little bit more, instead of working.

    May 3, 2008

  • reesetee commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    Ptero, do they seem to follow any of these? I guess most people wouldn't know them these days....

    May 3, 2008

  • dontcry commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    This is probably a stupid question (and definately a long one), but if "K" is for "Kilo" which is short for Kilogram which is metric (no?)-and Italians live in Europe (sort of ;-)) and Europeans (reminds me of a potty joke...) use the metric system...THEN how do Italians describe that particular unit of measure?

    May 3, 2008

  • dontcry commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    Sorry, without the letter "K" I mean.

    May 3, 2008

  • Prolagus commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    dontcry, do you know you can edit your comments after posting them? so you don't have to be sorry :-)

    (I'll answer your question later)

    May 3, 2008

  • Prolagus commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    (Why do I hate freedom?)

    May 3, 2008

  • frindley commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    In my experience a good many tend to be names, e.g. N for Nellie.

    And the use can often be selective, with not all letters given a phonetic helper, just the ones that need it most: F and S can often be confused, so they'll be identified in phone calls, similarly D and T, N and M and so on. But L, for example, is often left alone. Ditto E.

    May 3, 2008

  • pterodactyl commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    Frindley, you're absolutely right. M and N, B and P, D and T, S and F -- there are quite a few of these troublesome pairs.

    But even L has its problems, I've found. I sometimes have trouble distinguishing L from R over a scratchy phone line, especially if I'm not familiar with the speaker's accent.

    May 3, 2008

  • sarra commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    I use f as in fox. Every time I kick myself when I remember it sounds like socks. Foxtrot. Foxtrot. I will remember.

    I love, no matter how tired it is, repeated by whichever comedian or “comedian”, g as in gnome…

    May 3, 2008

  • bilby commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    To answer dontcry's question, kilo is written chilo in Italian. In Italian spelling ch is always pronounced like the hard k English. Rather than K being 'for anything' when people spell words out, I usually hear them say kappa which is the name of the letter.

    July 19, 2008

  • plethora commented on the list the-i-de-facto-i-phonetic-alphabet

    I always use f for freddy, but I suppose that comes from watching too much Wheel of Fortune as a kid.

    July 19, 2008