Short Stuff: NATO Alphabet

Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and Dave's not, but he would be if he weren't doing something else right now. He sends his love and kisses to all of you from Dave this short stuff.

That's right. We're talking about what's called the phonetic alphabet, and we're like, well, I don't know what that is.

It's a phonetic alphabet.

You do know what it is. If you've ever seen a war movie, or if you're hooked on phonics, or if you're hooked on phonics, or you know, you may not be using the actual phonetic alphabet that they finally agreed on, which we'll get to, but you may be using your own version. If you've ever been on a customer service call.

I've done that.

And you've had to, you know, say, well, my name is Chuck Jack No Chuck see as in Chuck h is in Harley Davidson in Ubiquitous, uh C is in can you believe I'm having the spell? Chuck out and k is in Kangaroo poop.

That's a good one, Chuck. I liked that last one.

Yeah, I never know what to say. When I go to do that, I know, and I feel like I get stumped, which is remarkable that like I can't think of a SA word, which is crazy, especially with the sea word.

We just walk on past that one, Chuck, Why would you possibly want to assign words to letters when you're talking to somebody on a customer service hotline?

Well, I have an answer. And by the way, thanks to popular mechanics and NATO DOT I n T in particular for this, you would want to do that because, you know, a lot of this stuff started out after well it all started out after radio communication was born.

When they were the excellent point I hadn't considered, you know.

When they were telegrams were the way that people communicated. It was very easy to see what someone meant because it was spelled out for you. But once radio coom started, and especially in things like war, if you're trying to say report your position because you're being bombed, the person on the other end they can't see you, they can't reach your lips. They're hearing bombing going on and people probably yelling and screaming, and it's chaotic, and so you

Yeah, makes total sense. One of those things is so obvious that it could smack you on the forehead, but you just don't think about that. They just did not need it before radio and people who use the radio a lot and really really need clear communication because the stuff that they're talking about can often be life and death. Those are the ones you'll most typically find using that phonetic or NATO alphabet.

Yeah, and there's also I mean, the very foundation of ventriloquism is based on the idea that there are sounds that sound like other sounds and that can very confusing, and ventriloquism you exploit that by saying those other sounds have less lip movement as a substitute. But if you're on a radio communication with some communica, is that what you would say? Yeah, then you don't want to get someone THH confused with an F you know what I mean?

Yeah, I know what you mean. Man, That can lead to disaster.

There's been a long kind of weird history with this though. Yeah, as far as agreeing on it. The first one came about in the nineteen twenties, from the telecom industry, the International Telecommunications Union, and I say, we read all these versions.

They're great. They use geographical names, typically town, sometimes states. There was one I had to look up for X. It's ZAMTHEP.

I think you should just read the alphabet. Do it?

Okay?

I want to hear it.

Josh Style, Amsterdam, Baltimore, Casablanca, Denmark, Edison, New Jersey, Florida, Galiopoli. Whatever you entered, it a bell.

It's what you do.

Whoever I was speaking to in nineteen twenty would have known I meant g okay Havana, Italia. They put a little extra spicy sauce on that one.

Uh huh.

Jerusalem kilogram makes no sense, Liverpool, Madagascar, New York, Oslo, Paris, Quebec, Roma, Santiago, Tripoli, Uppsila, Valencia, Washington. There's that zan thiep again, Yokohama and Zurich.

I'm just trying to picture you on the war communication. When you no, he said, a Galiopoly is a no. It is a no letter for Galiopoli, right, Galipoly No, he said, a Galiopoly.

They accidentally in big Galiopoli when they meant to go to Gallipoli.

I don't know why, all of a sudden you're on a communicate with Italy.

I have always said galiopoly too. Really, Yeah, I like it more. I'm gonna continue saying it because I say it so infrequently. Why change something like that?

Man, that extra val. I'm gonna start calling you Josiah.

Yeah, Okaya, the same as calling me Joshua.

Oh is it the same name. Basically, it's the.

Same number of syllables. Oh, stop Josiah.

Joshua militarily speaking. So that was the telecoms industry. On the military side, they started using the Army Navy's phonetic alphabet, which they called the Abel Baker Alphabetic alphabetic alphabet because those are the first two and the Brits use this one as well. And I'll go through this one, Abel Baker,

My favorite combination is Roger Sugar.

Yeah or easy Dog. I had a guy the end of the day. I just got to say this, and I'm even going to name the theater the Landmark Midtown Cinema.

Oh yeah, it's a good one.

I went to get popcorn at an eleven minute AM showing of the new Indiana Jones movie, and I said, is that stuff fresh? And the guy went, yeah, I popped it this morning. And I went because I know that wasn't true. Probably they re use popcorn all theaters do. I said, okay, I'll take it based solely on that. I go to eat the popcorn in the theater. It is really stale. I was gonna say, like, who cares, but I was like, you know what, that was eight bucks. I'm gonna go back up there and just get my

For real.

Yeah, And I usually very non confrontational, but I went, did you just call me dog? And he looked at me and didn't say anything. I think I scared him a little bit o good, and I went did you call me dog? And the manager just looked at me, and I gave her the kind of look of like this is where this is your turn?

Now? Yeah you're you were like, you gave her You're not going to fire him.

Look, I don't want to fire, but like say something. She didn't say anything. She gave me my money, and on the way out, I did the very old man thing, which I didn't think I would ever do. I was just like, hey, man, just so you know, forget I'm a customer, human to human. Talking to someone like that just isn't a way to go about life. Take it or leave it.

Wow, man, did you drop your microphone? I did nice work.

So you're doing great Landmark Cinemas.

It's a good theater. There's just one problem, employee.

I know, all right. Sorry. I had to get that off my chest, and that seemed like a good time to do it. So we finished up with Zebra to wrap this up before we took a break. Ten years after that, the IATA, the International Air Transport Association said, listen, everyone's complaining because this is to English English centric. So let's swap out a few of these words. And they said, great,

Delta, they which one delta for dog.

Yeah. The guy could have said delta. It tastes fine, but they swapped out some stuff just to make it a little less sort of I guess American.

Yeah. One thing that I was surprised and never knew is that Alpha is not spelled Alpha. It's al Fa. Did you know that?

Well? In the in the other version, I think the first version was Pha, right or was it always FA?

I don't know, but I wonder if it's like product placement from the Alpha Insurance company, like they sponsored that particular phonetic alphabet.

Oh no, actually it was Alpha because the only previous was Amsterdam.

Or Able or Able.

Yeah, all right, I did not know that. I could have sworn it would have been pH.

I say, we take a break, Chuck, it's ten minutes into the short stuff. Let's do it. If you want to know luck, just listen to Suffus Stuffuse no.

Stories. We're going to zip through this last bit.

Okay. So NATO says this is this is pretty good, but I think we can improve on the Abel Baker thing. So they formed a committee, which means everything starts moving at a snail's pace, and they argue about what to change the letters C M and you an X two. Apparently they finally got through those, but and just kept hanging on. They couldn't decide on nectar versus November.

That is so funny to get hung up on something like that.

Yeah, so we're talking like a couple of years they're talking about this. Finally, the NATO Military Standing Group says, we're just going to use this anyway. You guys go figure it out. The reason everybody was waiting was because the International Civil Aviation Organization, which basically lays the communication standards down for the entire civilian air traffic control universe. Right, they just I guess they were the ones who couldn't decide on nectar versus November, so they didn't sign on.

That's right, and then finally in February of nineteen fifty six, I belief saying, starting in March, they're like, this is going to be the one that everyone's going to use. We need it. I think the ITU, the International Telecommunications

So they have I don't know where you got this list, but they have the pronunciations next.

To them with which one.

There's a couple that I'm like, really they have for oh, for Oscar, they say to pronounce it Oscar and the victor Victa.

Well maybe they were from Boston, I guess.

So that's really really funny. Yeah, So there you go. That's the NATO phonetic alphabet and Chuck's Landmarks cinema story.

I should title it that you got anything else nothing else?

Well, that means everybody short stuff is out.

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