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 personally hate it when I say the nato alphabet equivallent and somebody just gets confused. Like “what do you mean alpha, is that what I need to type?”. Or worse yet, they start using names and end up with the joke from Archer - “M as in Mancy” or other nondescript names for letters.
Tbf most people never have reason to use it so they don’t know it. Or they just think the words are random after watching a cop drama or comedy where a word is spelled out over a radio. Also there seems to be an independent police phonetic called then “LAPD” alphabet, but I can’t tell if it’s intended to be serious or just mostly lifted from movies and tv.
For the layperson you have to do the “[letter] as in [phonetic alphabet equivalent]” format. Most people will understandably get confused if they ask how to spell your name and you tell them “Alpha-November-Delta-Yankee”. If they’re not used to it or never heard it it’ll sound like you just started having a stroke.
I guess i watched a bunch of war movies as a kid; because as an adult mid 20s somebody on the phone spelled out their software code using phonetic alphabet, it took me a split second to process the unexpected, but then knew it was the first letter from osmosis i guess
first letter from osmosis i guess
No it’s Oscar
:)
My problem is that I absolutely blank when coming up with words to use, even if it’s my own damn name. At least this gives me a standard set to work with.
My personal favorite I overheard was “N as in pneumonic”
I like throwing these in on purpose, p as in pterodactyl often gets a chuckle.
Oh me too but this kid was serious. F as in phantasm
If you used the p on purpose this is genius comedy. But otherwise mneumonic
M as in Mancy
LANA
Jesus, the helium!
MAWP
K as in Knowlege G as in Gnome M as in Mnemonic P as in Pterodactyl W as in Wrist
“No, I said P! P for pterodactyl!”
Edit: Though, that said, the point of the phonetic alphabet is they are very distinguishable words that sound nothing like one another. Even making out just “-a-a” you know it was papa, P. So as long as you know how to spell pterodactyl…
The NATO phonetic alphabet is incredibly useful, though it does suffer from some issues in similar sounds. During a recent high frequency (HF) worldwide competition (IARU-HF), weak-signal SSB stations sometimes had to spend a few minutes trying to complete a radio exchange because of similar sounding phonetic endings: “Was that whiskey one bravo alpha?”
“Negative, whiskey one tango alpha—TANGO alpha, over”
This happens so commonly, that many HF operators substitute other words in the same manner to enhance understanding: common ones are kilowatt, sugar, Germany, America, London, etc.
Whiskey tango foxtrot.
I was so close to editing my comment to be “whiskey one tango foxtrot” and now I regret not doing it lol
kilowatt, sugar, Germany, America, London
They’re great substitutes. I always found Quebec to be the most distinguishable because of geographic reference.
Golf to Germany makes sense as Golf it’s single syllable with yet another hard type O in it. Unlike Mike which could be missed, but the I and K crack/pop are strong sounds.
Kilowatt is interesting since the ‘watt’ is a backup sound if kilo is distorted. Honestly, Kardashian would be a good one as much as it pains me to say it.
Kilowatt trips me up still, I’ll copy KW maybe once in ~100 exchanges and not notice. It’s more common during high-volume exchanges. Getting better though!
I shudder at even typing Kardashian lol
“Klingon” is my go-to. Just the word, not the language.
Someone made a whole book out of this homeOmg, I need to waste my money on this.
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
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!
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…”
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!
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.
Egg
🥚 🏳️⚧️
there are other versions that would be more suitable to the public….
Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Item, Jig, King, Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle, Victor, William, X-ray, Yoke, Zebra.
Adam, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Edward, Frank, George, Henry, Ida, John, King, Lincoln, Mary, New York, Ocean, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Thomas, Union, Victor, William, X-Ray, Young, Zero.
….
any common words will wordthe 2nd list isn’t great… Chicago and Sugar? N is two words, Mary and Henry are similar… I think part of the NATO one is you’d be able to tell even if you miss part of the word.
I feel like “N as in Nan” could easily sound like “M as in Man.”
they’re old timey examples… just the first ones i googled
Yeah, use clearly distinct words, like “M as in Mancy”.
Pan, ran, san, ban, can, tan, lan, flan, clan, gran, Dan, fan, van, Jan, there’s probably more…
As a non-native speaker I’d have no idea how to pronounce or spell Jig, Oboe, Tare or Yoke
Jig - take the Ji from Jim and add a “g”
Oboe - oh bow
Tare - take the “T” from top and the “are” from share. Or more annoyingly, switch the P for T in “pear”.
Yoke - same as woke, poke, toke, joke but with a Y as the first sound. It’s also pronounced the same as yolk in most accents.
Oboe - oh bow
I worry this isn’t the most helpful guide even for someone who speaks English as a first language, is that bow as in bow, or bow?
Which is exactly why the NATO alphabet is the way it is. NATO is an international organization, and the alphabet is suitable for that.
E for egg isn’t even consistent throughout the English-speaking world. That vowel might be quite different in something like South African or Kiwi English compared to other dialects.
It doesn’t need to sound the same though, as long as the listener can spell ‘egg’.
It’s not even consistent within the US. I’ve known people who, if they said that sentence over the phone it would sound a lot like “E as in A”
Aigs?
Iggs!
Oh, eyren!
Lima balls…
“M as in Mancy!”
this is an alphabet but the whole idea of the phonetic alphabet is to make communication more efficient, and I don’t think this achieves that.
/s
X dd…
Depends on with whom you’re talking with
Beautiful, though they didn’t really describe dd well
X is X-ray??
And F is Foxtrot but not just Fox??
Am I the only that thinks this is crazy?
I prefer x as in xylophone myself
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.
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.
All the cool kids learned it from the bloodhound gang.
Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo.
I was in the Army for 6 years, yet whenever I try to think of the letter M my brain just short circuits to “Movember”.
M as in mancy
