# Alternate NATO alphabet
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 27, 2022, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636 "2022-11-27T16:41:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2022, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636/41 "2022-11-29T01:44:32Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#):
>
> > [@LSLGuy](#):
> >
> > As long as you use “ghoti” for G I’ll go along. 🙂
>
> Umm, shouldn’t _ghoti_ be _F_?
> 😜
Just in case you’re serious … the whole and entire point is that “ghoti” for G is misleading as all get out.
When I was a little kid my Dad told a story of a cow-orker whose last name was something like “Farmer”. Mr. Farmer liked to introduce himself as “That’s F as in Philadelphia, A as in …”
I have no idea why that’s stuck with me all these decades, but it has.
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### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2022, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636/42 "2022-12-01T06:26:31Z")
There was an episode of _Monk_ in which one of the running gags was Randy Disher using idiosyncratic words to stand for letters, where the words were terrible fits. I think one was “T as in tsunami” and another was “G as in gnome”.
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### Author:  [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2022, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636/43 "2022-12-01T20:00:36Z")
What I find to be annoying is people who spell the way OP said - “A as in Alpha” (or even “A - Alpha”) Maybe its just that I’m used to speaking on a radio to someone else who uses the system all the time. Delta, Oscar, Papa, Echo is the correct way to spell it using the NATO alphabet. I suppose the other ways are acceptable for non-frequent users but it still bugs me.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2022, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636/44 "2022-12-01T20:38:05Z")
> [@SCAdian](#):
>
> > [@abcdefghij](#):
> >
> > “You know, the words for the letters, like ‘Alpha’, ‘Bravo’, …”
>
> Nitpick: Alfa
Correct, but odd, since “alfa” isn’t even a word. Not even in the Italian car company name “Alfa Romeo”, where “alfa” is just an initialism for “Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili”. It’s a mystery why “alfa” came to be the conventional spelling in the NATO/ICAO phonetic alphabet.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2022, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636/45 "2022-12-01T21:14:35Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> It’s a mystery why “alfa” came to be the conventional spelling in the NATO/ICAO phonetic alphabet.
No mystery. It’s to clarify the pronunciation for those members of NATO whose language _doesn’t_ have a “ph = f” combo in it. There are more than a few.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2022, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636/46 "2022-12-01T21:16:51Z")
Good point, thank you. Internationalization was a major goal of the NATO phonetic alphabet.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636/47 "2022-12-01T22:48:07Z")
I’ve tried to use the NATO alphabet directly, when spelling things like my name over the phone (“Charlie Hotel Romeo Oscar November Oscar Sierra”), but I’ve found that it usually just confuses the person on the other end. So now I usually do the “C as in Charlie” thing, unless I have reason to suspect that the person I’m talking to is a veteran or a ham (or would otherwise know the NATO alphabet).
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### Author:  [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-nato-alphabet/975636/48 "2022-12-02T20:46:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> So now I usually do the “C as in Charlie” thing,
A lot of times, me spelling my name ends up being
“V” - as in Victor
NO, I said “V” as in Victor
V AS IN VIOLENT
(by then, they get it)
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