INTERNATIONAL RADIOTELEPHONY SPELLING ALPHABET
Whenever I spell my last name to people over the phone, and the difficult-to-enunciate letter N comes up, I always say: “N as in Nancy.” And I’ll ask you not to make any Nancy-boy jokes, thank you very much. Well I did it at work the other day and someone corrected me and said the official word I’m supposed to use is “November”. Show of hands: Who knew there were official words you’re supposed to use? Liars!
Well apparently there is, and it’s called the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet. Here they are:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu
So there you have it. If you don’t use these words you are a moron. This alphabetical system was created in 1927, some changes were made in 1932, and then adopted by British and American military forces in 1956. During the Vietnam War, Viet Cong guerrillas were referred to as “Victor Charlies”, and then abbreviated to “Charlies”. You can also say “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!” which means “What the fuck?” Okay maybe not, but it’s fun to say.
On particular crumby (when I need cheering up) or silly (when I just feel like being a buffoon) days, I enjoy using ridiculous words when spelling things out over the phone. There are a few ways you can do this such as:
Use obsurd words like: “O as in Onomatopoeia.”
Or STDs: “C as in Chlamydia.”
Make it the second word: “P as in Mary Poppins.”
Say it even though the letter doesn’t need clarification: “W as in Wikipedia.”
Bonus points for alliteration: “B as in Bouncing Ball of Boyancy.”
Make up silly sentences for letters that are also words: “Y as in Why does my boyfriend’s Mom hate me so much?”
Change the first letter of common words: “M as in Melevision.”
Use words with silent letters: “K as in Knife.”
Your job today — if you choose to accept it (and you better!) — is to use a ridiculous “Blank as in Blankety Blank” phrase to a complete stranger, or coworker, or anyone who isn’t a friend, and report back to us here and tell us about it. Otherwise:
TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW!
This is the second post i’m seeing on the topic of fun facts and i must say your comments are hilarious .. it’s nice to see a friendly chatter not a comment space where people are just raggin on each other… it’s ok to be diffrent.. being a dork ROCKS!
Thanks Erica! I’m really proud of the community we’ve managed to built here at Puntabulous and I contribute it to all my great readers! Hope you stick around!
This is my first visit here (thanks, StumbleUpon!) but I think I can safely say that you may in fact be extremely awesome.
I’m still laughing over “K as in Knife”, and probably will be whenever I think of it for quite some time.
Nice! I hardly use the radio alphabet, except V for Victor, which has somehow crept into common usage. Tangent: one time when I was making an appointment over the phone to see a doctor, the receptionist said, “You’ll be seeing Doctor Gayer. Like Bayer, but with a G.”
And of course I wanted to say, “Or like, more gay.”
[...] Phun on a Phriday By TwoPi Last August, ? and I were inspired by a post about the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet at our favorite non-math blog, puntabulous, to create a satirical version, one that would be [...]