Alternate NATO alphabet

[abcdefghij]

One time on the boat, a friend came to get me so we could inventory the Sealed Authenticators. They were locked inside a safe that was locked inside a safe that was locked inside the Radio Room, which was always staffed and under restricted access. My friend had the combination to one safe and I had the combination to the other and one of us was supposed to read off the serial IDs for the Authenticators (not the codes sealed inside!) and the other verified against the inventory list.

I started through the Authenticators reading “AA, AB, AC, …” and my colleague saying “check, check, check, …”. After only a handful, the Radioman on duty broke in with “you’re not doing it right. You can’t say the letters, you have to say the words.”

I knew what he meant, but strategical deterrent patrols go on for a long time and it gets boring, so I replied “what words? ‘QZ’ doesn’t spell anything.” “You know, the words for the letters, like ‘Alpha’, ‘Bravo’, …”. “Fine”, I said and happened to look down at the map of the world under plexiglass on the bench we were work working at. Fortuitously (?), I was positioned over the Soviet Union, so started reading off “Arkhangelsk-Moskva, Moskva-Novosibirsk, Okhotsk-Petropavlosk, …” and my colleague responded “check, check, check, …” I’m starting to have to scramble to find cities that start with the right letters.

RM3: “You speak Russian, Mr. Abcd!?”
Me: “Of course I speak Russian. I grew up there.”
RM3: “What do you mean you grew up there!? You did not grow up in Russia!”
Me: “Well no. I grew up in Ukraine, in Pripyat[*].”
RM3: “No, no, no. That’s not possible. You didn’t grow up there.”
Me: “If I didn’t grow up there, then how come I speak Russian?”

That was enough to tumble his gyros (the poor kid was about 19). My colleague and I finished up, locked everything away, and left to go back to whatever we’d been doing before.

Later that night, the Chief Radioman came out to the Conn when I was standing OOD. He growled, “What. Did. You. Tell. Him!? He won’t let you into Radio on your own anymore!” “Chief, I didn’t want to go into Radio in the first place!” I explained and the Chief agreed that it was funny, but that I’d made his life more difficult. It was at least a week or two before the RM3 decided that maybe I wasn’t a serious security breach after all.

[*] the only reason I knew about Pripyat was because we’d studied Chernobyl in Nuke School.

[its_the_daddy]

Here are some alternatives:

Cockney Alphabet

I learnt some of the Clapham & Dwyer version in the early 1950’s, presumably from one of my uncles, who would have been right there in '36. ‘Ostensible humour’ is about right…

[LSLGuy]

@abcdefghij

I explained and the Chief agreed that it was funny, but that I’d made his life more difficult. It was at least a week or two before the RM3 decided that maybe I wasn’t a serious security breach after all.

You couldn’t plausibly ask him “Where are the nuclear wessels?” in a bad Russian accent since you were standing inside one at the time. Still, it would have been epic.

[RitterSport]

I want to hear the rest of Springfield’s alphabet:

Separate Vocations The Simpsons License Plate Eggplant Xerxes Crybaby Overbite Narwhal

[abcdefghij]

@LSLGuy

You couldn’t plausibly ask him “Where are the nuclear wessels?”

A missed opportunity for sure.

[Dr.Winston_OBoogie]

Some buddies of mine were into ham radio. Call signals were based on location and skill test passed. They would get bored with the usual, and started making up sentences to go along with their call signs, like “Kevin Bought 9 Mechanical Windows”

[SCAdian]

A - Are
C - Cue
S - Sea
Y - You

[Dr.Strangelove]

@LSLGuy

As long as you use “ghoti” for G I’ll go along.

Have to stick to real words. G is for Gnat.
H - Honor
K - Knight
M - Mnemonic
P - Pterodactyl
Q - Queue
T - Tsunami

[wolfpup]

@LSLGuy

One of the other gotchas is the letter Q which is properly pronounced “KAY-beck” … It was a semi-official standard = near universal technique in USAF to pronounce Q as “CUE-beck” in those circumstances.

As someone who lives next door to Quebec and has in the past lived in it, I can confidently say that neither of those pronunciations is correct – or at least, certainly not commonplace.

The French pronunciation of Quebec is “KE-beck” (as one can clearly hear no less an exalted Frenchman than Charles Degaulle clearly articulate in this clip of an infamous 1967 speech.

The anglicized pronunciation is most commonly “KWE-beck”, vocalizing the “Q”.

So from that standpoint “Quebec” makes sense as the phonetic representation for the letter “Q”, although perhaps a common word like “quiet” might have been a better choice.

Incidentally, Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Aeronautical Telecommunications, Chapter 5, page 81, sets out the standard pronunciations for the NATO phonetic code words as adopted by the ICAO. The international phonetic convention for “Quebec” is given as ke’bek and the Latin representation as KEH BECK, so they appear to have standardized on the French rather than the anglicized version.

[SCAdian]

@abcdefghij

“You know, the words for the letters, like ‘Alpha’, ‘Bravo’, …”

Nitpick: Alfa

[LSLGuy]

@abcdefghij

@LSLGuy

You couldn’t plausibly ask him “Where are the nuclear wessels?”

A missed opportunity for sure.

In my USAF pilot training class we had a fellow student who was born in Ukraine to ethnic Ukrainian parents. They’d emigrated to the US when he was a toddler around 1960. His given & family names were obviously Slavic, his appearance was obviously Slavic, and his parents had raised him bilingually so he could speak Ukrainian or Russian (I was never clear which) quite well and could apply that accent at will to his otherwise native USAian English.

This was the early 80s: the height of the Cold War, the waning days of Leonid Brezhnev, the Evil Empire, and all that fun stuff. In USAF circles, the Soviet Union was the one and only Big Bad.

He got a lot of mileage out of playing the Soviet spy for laffs.

[abcdefghij]

@SCAdian

Nitpick: Alfa

At least you didn’t call me out on

@abcdefghij

strategical deterrent patrols

Clearly, I meant “strategery”.

[abcdefghij]

@LSLGuy

He got a lot of mileage out of playing the Soviet spy for laffs.

I’ll bet! I was treated with enough suspicion for having grown up in Berkeley.

[RickJay]

@Chronos

I was at the airport the other day, and there was a tram to take passengers from one terminal to the next. At each spot, a recorded voice would say “Next stop A gates, A as in Alpha”. And so on, with “B as in Bravo”, “C as in Charlie”, “D as in David”, “E as in Echo”, and “F as in Foxtrot” (and there the train ended).

The NATO thing hasn’t even always been a military standard; anyone who’s seen Band of Brothers knows in WWII the word for E was often “Easy.” NATO didn’t even have the NATO alphabet until about ten years after NATO was founded.

I’m not even sure the NATO alphabet is necessarily the best one, and I say that as a guy who could recite it in my sleep. When they standardized it they did so so it was relatively easy to say for anyone who spoke English, French, Spanish or Italian, but I’m not sure how easy it is for someone speaking Polish, Magyar, or Greek to say the same words.

[LSLGuy]

@wolfpup

Incidentally, Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Aeronautical Telecommunications, Chapter 5, page 81, sets out the standard pronunciations for the NATO phonetic code words as adopted by the ICAO. The international phonetic convention for “Quebec” is given as ke’bek and the Latin representation as KEH BECK, so they appear to have standardized on the French rather than the anglicized version.

Thank you. I’m surprised to see that, but glad to be updated.

I was not suggesting that “KAY-beck” was a normal non-radio pronunciation of the province name. Rather that “KAY-beck” was the artificial stylized pronunciation of the radio codeword, like “FOW-er” for 4 or “TREE” for 3.

[wolfpup]

@LSLGuy

I was not suggesting that “KAY-beck” was a normal non-radio pronunciation of the province name. Rather that “KAY-beck” was the artificial stylized pronunciation of the radio codeword, like “FOW-er” for 4 or “TREE” for 3.

Understood. I sort of figured that you guys had your own de facto standard for some of these pronunciations. Just watch it if you ever visit Quebec – you don’t want to be instantly marked as a furriner!

[Chronos]

@Wrenching_Spanners

I vaguely recall some long-ago conversations involving creating (very) short stories from the NATO phonetic alphabet. I think I remember:
Charlie Juliet Foxtrot Whiskey Tango Hotel November Papa.

Also: Yankee Uniform Sierra Delta Zulu Victor Bravo.

OK, the first is a pretty clear description of a one-night stand and its eventual consequences, but I can’t make any sense out of that second one… The New York baseball team (or at least, someone wearing their jerseys) win a game against an African team? Played at a rivermouth in the western mountains? And they’re to be applauded for it?

[crowmanyclouds]

@LSLGuy

As long as you use “ghoti” for G I’ll go along.

Umm, shouldn’t ghoti be F?

[Wrenching_Spanners]

A South African (Zulu) military detachment supplied with US (Yankee) weaponry and Uniforms conducts a successful (Victorious) operation in a Sierra Leone river Delta. They’re praised for their success - Bravo.

Reordering it: Zulu Yankee Uniform Victor Sierra Delta Bravo.
Alternative: Yankee Uniform Zulu Victor Sierra Delta Bravo, which is probably what I should have written.

[Wrenching_Spanners]

@LSLGuy

I was not suggesting that “KAY-beck” was a normal non-radio pronunciation of the province name. Rather that “KAY-beck” was the artificial stylized pronunciation of the radio codeword, like “FOW-er” for 4 or “TREE” for 3.

I definitely remember the importance of the emphasis on the first syllable, and that Quebec was “KAY-beck” and three was “TREE”. But four was “FOR-er”. That “R” wasn’t dropped. Also, nine was “NINE-ER”.