I often get on the phone with customer service folks in the US, and when it comes time to spell out my name etc., I end up using a different word each time for the letters in my name. This seems to confuse the people on the other end of the line, especially since I use whatever word comes to my mind with that letter, rather than easy simple words.
So help me learn my ABCs. Is there a standard form? What were you taught in school?
A for Apple? or Alpha? or Airplane? or Azzure? or Anything?
I grew up using the phonetic alphabet. Alpha, bravo, Charlie, etc. Bot of my parents were pilots, and dad was career Navy and then career FAA.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
I grew up using the phonetic alphabet. Alpha, bravo, Charlie, etc. Bot of my parents were pilots, and dad was career Navy and then career FAA.
[/QUOTE]
The phonetic alphabet? You say that like there’s only one. 
There are lots out there. I listened to a really interesting radio documentary once on the history of them all. But anyway. For the OP, yeah, the smart thing to do would be to learn the most popular one.
… G for Gnu…
… K for Knowing…
… P for Psycho…
… X for, um, Xena…
Any others along these lines? 
I’ve frequently been told, in customer service, to use common names instead of other nouns. This seems to work pretty well.
[QUOTE=Beltane]
I’ve frequently been told, in customer service, to use common names instead of other nouns. This seems to work pretty well.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I would say:
Apple
Bear
Cat
Delta
Epsilon
Frank
Gary
…
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
I grew up using the phonetic alphabet. Alpha, bravo, Charlie, etc. Bot of my parents were pilots, and dad was career Navy and then career FAA.
[/QUOTE]
I learnt the Alpha Bravo Charlie thing (and semaphore :)) when I was in school, but for some reason the phone people seem to prefer “D for Dave” to “D for Delta”.
[QUOTE=lawoot]
… G for Gnu…
… K for Knowing…
… P for Psycho…
… X for, um, Xena…
Any others along these lines?
[/QUOTE]
A for Æon
C for Chthonian
F for Fjord
H for Herb
J for Jung
L for Llama (pronounced “yama”)
P for Pwn
Q for Qur’an
Y for Ygdrasil
[QUOTE=lawoot]
… G for Gnu…
… K for Knowing…
… P for Psycho…
… X for, um, Xena…
Any others along these lines?
[/QUOTE]
… J for José
… M for Mnemonic
… W for Wry
My next phone call will be fun 
Too bad my name is not PXKJMWG though.
[QUOTE=xash]
… W for Wry
[/QUOTE]
pronounces rye different from wry…
Another phonetic alphabet user chiming in. Hooray for a military background.
Here’s the NATO phonetic alphabet for english:
And from NASA:
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/MAEL/ag/phonetic.htm
I’ve got to say, as a phone monkey I absolutely adore it when people make the effort to use one of the recognised phonetic alphabets to spell something out - especially if they have a very thick accent. Compare
“D for Delta” or “P for Papa”
to this exchange (based on a call I took the other day):
What I heard was “B for Barry”. So to clarify, I repeated it back as “Was that B for Bravo?”. Which earned me “No. No. B for Barry, you know. Like with a sword. Barry.”
Turns out he was saying “P for Parry”
A for 'orses.
B for mutton.
C for miles.
Etc.
[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
A for Æon
C for Chthonian
F for Fjord
H for Herb
J for Jung
L for Llama (pronounced “yama”)
P for Pwn
Q for Qur’an
Y for Ygdrasil
[/QUOTE]
No problem with “herb” in the UK because we pronounce the “h” .
All I know is…
C is for cookie and that’s good enough for me!
Curse you jjimm! I wanted to post that…
F as in fnord?
[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
Apple
Bear
Cat
Delta
Epsilon
Frank
Gary
…
[/QUOTE]
And I wish my co-workers would knock this off, at least the Frank. Use Fred, or something. I’m pretty good at zoning out conversations over on the support side until I hear my name.
Co-worker: Blah blah blah blah Frank blah…
Frank: What?
[QUOTE=Smeghead]
The phonetic alphabet? You say that like there’s only one. There are lots out there.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I was taking a shortcut in my post.