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Comment by scrollaway | Hacker News Reader

Take a few minutes to learn the NATO phonetic alphabet

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu

Gotta spell anything over a voice line? Use it. No more screwing around with "B.. like Bryan, and then U, like .... under". s-c-r-o-l-l-a-w-a-y: sierra charlie romeo oscar lima lima alpha whiskey alpha yankee.

I learned it when I was 14, and I genuinely used this a TON in the decade and half since.

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When calling an airline, ask if you can give them the PNR (Passenger Name Record, what your ticket calls the "booking reference") and then read it off with the NATO alphabet. You will get instant credibility with the agent on the other side as a flyer who knows their shit, plus it's hella fast.

I learned this when I was a teen as a simple memory exercise. Each night in bed before falling asleep I'd try to run through the phonetic alphabet and I've retained it ever since (30+ years later).

It's hugely valuable for removing ambiguity and confusion in phone calls. While most people don't know the phonetic alphabet well enough to spell words using it, everyone understands when a word is spelled to them using the phonetic alphabet.

The word "Yankee" originates in calling early Dutch colonists Jan-Kees, Jan and Kees being common Dutch male names.

Jan is the equivalent name as John, Ian, Ivan, Ewan, Euan, Yan, Jean, Juan, Giovanni, Hans, Shaun, Sean, Jock, many others.

Amazing how many terms for 'foreigner from <place>' or 'random man' all resolve to variants of the same common name.

If you are wondering about Hans.

Johann -> Johannes -> Hannes -> Hans

One theory is that Kees is a dialectal version of "kaas" (cheese), so Jan Kees is "John Cheese".

Which is what the name of Monty Python member John Cleese would be if his father hadn't decided to change it to "Cleese" because he didn't like being named "Cheese".

Whenever I need to call an airline about a flight, I look up the NATO spelling of the reservation code. So far call center employees always understood me, used it back, and it made the communication extremely fluid.

I've just realized this is an error correction algorithm for humans :)

All pilots, private and commercial, have to learn this. I taught it to my kids driving to school when they were in elementary school.

I think it’s fantastic your kids were able to drive to elementary school

note that words have special pronunciation such as kehBEC not keeBEC. Pilots also pronounce numbers differently Tree (3) or Fow Er (4)

https://skybrary.aero/articles/icao-phonetic-alphabet

I’m more of P is for Pterodactyl kinda guy.

I always do L like Elisabeth and N like Enigma.

O as in opossum.

A few minutes? Ha, no way. I think it'd take me at least a few days of short deliberate practice sessions to actually memorize this from scratch. Also, useless outside of the US.

(I'm whining, but I do think this is cool.)

Useless outside the US? Ignoring the obvious objection, one of the design goals of the initial iteration of the NATO/ICAO phonetic alphabet was that every word in it would be familiar to you as long as you were fluent in either English, French or Spanish.

The phonetic alphabet is very much recognized and used in any English-speaking country around the world, plus airline staff working in any country period.

I have never lived in the US :)

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