Warning: This might be the most random post this blog has ever hosted. And the competition for that is kinda fierce. Proceed at your own risk, ok?
I've got a problem with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet and I don't know who to complain to. With any luck someone from their governing body will trip over this via Google and my voice will be heard. I can't be the only one with this issue. Maybe their is a large group of people out there just looking for a leader. For years they've thought they were alone and were just waiting for someone else to stand up.
A bit of background, when I became a travel agent over eight years ago I ran into a little problem with all of the confirmation codes that we speak over the phone. Most agents used names, MBL would come out as 'Melanie, Brenda, Lucy' or something like that. This works well if you're disciplined enough to use the same names but if not you run into problems like saying 'Mary, Barry, Larry'. This is worse than useless.
I emailed my brother for the phonetic alphabet and he quickly shot back a list that matches this one. Problem solved! Now I'd simply say 'Mike, Bravo, Lima' and the person on the other end of the phone would never misunderstand me.
In practice that isn't true. Older, more experienced airline and hotel agents know what I'm saying but younger ones need a restart. When I was training new agents for the company, I'd hand them a copy of the list and urge them to use it. I wish other companies would too. (This would be nice for car companies too but I figure their agents are doing well to pick up the ringing thing and answer it. No need to increase the difficulty too high.)
Still, most of the time it would work just fine. With one exception. The letter 'S' is represented by the word 'sierra'. This is probably missed 90% of the time! Part of the problem is obvious, the word starts with the phonetic sound 'see' or 'C'. This causes plenty of confusion.
According to wikipedia, other words that have been used for 'S' are 'Santiago' and 'Sugar'. The alternate I've been sliding towards is 'Sam'. Changes have been made to this alphabet in the past. I think it's time for one more.
4 comments:
Heck, the really "old school" word was "Sail" (circa 1913); take a look here.
I like "Pup" and "Quack", myself.
Well, I am glad that the other 25 have been treating you well, at least.
I learned this alphabet when my friend Ernie was in Iraq. We'd talk on the phone all the time when he could call and he made a joke out of trying to get me to learn military stuff. So I did. And I use it all the time at work with insurance authorizations. I agree with Sierra, but I like Santiago. Or Silly. That works for me.
Humm... I use this all day in my job and never have a problem with 's'. I think it is because people who use it all day know 'c' is charlie. I have trouble with the way you should say 'q'. Who really says Kay-bec?
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