Why in communications is the word “niner” used for nine? Ostensibly this would be to avoid misunderstand, but misunderstanding what?
When communicating over noisy voice channels, the word “nine” can easily be confused with the word “five”. The term “niner” was invented to distinguish between the two
Another convention which is also used is to pronounce the word “nine” in two syllables, as “Ni-yun”.
Over weak or staticky radio circuits, nine could be confused with five, or even with three. Strategies were divised to make them sound as different as possible.
Thus, on military radiotelephone nets you’ll count like this:
Zero
One
Two
Tree
Fower
Fife
Six
Seven
Eight
Niner
The two competing theories I heard related to distinquishing “nine” from “five” and distinquishing the number “nine” in English from the German “nein” (no).
It would seem the “nine” vs. “five” reason is more accurate. Does anyone have any cites?
I’ve got to update my internal dictionary, which currently insists that “Niner” is defined as “A ‘Nooner’, only sooner.”
While we’re talking radio procedures that became part of common vocabulary, I’ll throw in “five by five”. Originally meant as an evaluation of signal quality, the respondent would give a one-to-five rating of signal volume (1 being faint, 5 being loud) and a one-to-five rating of clarity (1 being garbled, 5 being clear). A “five by five” reponse meant, naturally, that you were coming in loud and clear.
The number system gradually faded from use and operators now respond by using adjectives, but “five by five” remained a general-purpose metaphor for smooth operation.
Also, through use of the phonetic alphabet, “Viet Cong” became “Victor Charlie”, and eventually just “Charlie”. Isn’t history fun?
[anecdote] My Dad, a Vietnam veteran (Con Thien, Khe Sahn, with 1st Bn, 9th Marines, “The Walking Dead”) always called cockroaches “Charlie”. I never got the connection until about four years ago. [/anecdote]
Isn’t it true that in some instances they don’t use the word “five” because it sounds too much like “fire?” IIRC they go straight from six to four. At least it was in a movie I saw and movies are never wrong.
German has a similar trick. Since 2 and 3 (“zwei” and “drei”) have the same problem that 5 and 9 have in English, German speakers will change “zwei” to “zwo.”
IIRC, according to “Junkyard Wars”, that’s the way the Brits do it. The teams had to build cannons, and the British Army rep that was counting down the launch to fire, skipped the number 5 every time. I think they even mentioned that the reasoning was just as you say - so as to not sound like “fire!”
We do it that way in the Navy too. It sounds like a skipped beat between six and four.
Not much of a trick to me. To the best of my knowledge “zwei” and “zwo” are quite interchangeable in normal speech (dialectal variation?) so it’s just a matter of being practical and chosing the synonym that causes less confusion.
Of course, the way my mind works, it’d be along the lines of:
[Ego]: Why’d they skip 5?
[SuperEgo]: So you don’t think they said “Fire”
[Id]: Fire!!
FIRE
[Ego]: Oh shit…
Err…nothing to add really. Carry on…
Is it true that on board ship when opening fire on any target they do not say “fire” but “shoot”
Too funny. Thinking back, that’s exactly where I first saw it.
The usual command to open fire is “Commence firing”.