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Hawaiian comedian Frank De Lima told a joke about a Filipino announcer saying somebody needed to move their car, license plate B for Bictory, L for Elephant, Q for Cucumberrrrrrr…
A few months ago I expended the effort and learned that goddamn alphabet. Guess what? Haven’t needed it since. All gone.
Count your blessings, sucks having to get on the phone and play the spelling game
I love using animals when I do this.
How do you make the animals speak ?
Text often leaves out subtle nuance. In this case, imagine op making a hand gesture something like shaking ketchup out of a bottle.
“K for knight, P for pterodactyl, G for gnome”
There’s a World’s Worst Alphabet Book that has those.
Easy. A is for apple B is for bapple C is for capple …
I’m all about that NATO phonetic alphabet - which for some reason rubs certain people answering phones the wrong way.
Can’t say I don’t have a couple substitutions, though (Zebra instead of Zulu, Sam instead of Sierra, Frank instead of Foxtrot), but it’s not like I’m working the radio of an aircraft or something.
The NATO phonetic alphabet does make some intersting choices. Sierra being particularly bad because over a poor quality radio it can sound a lot like “zero.” the WWII American phonetic alphabet used “sugar.” Able Baker indeed.
I once said Sierra and the guy wrote the letter C, because apparently he might be a physicist, but he was also an idiot
Sam and Frank are quite similar
Unrecognisable letter - a - m or n, very similar - unrecognisable could be both (say when it’s loud and you’re talking)
Sierra and Foxtrot are very different and that’s what matters
Understood, but these were selected based on what seems to work for your average customer service person/office worker. The amount of times I’ve said ‘Sierra’ and got back C is too many.
Might re-think Frank over Foxtrot, though. That’s more habit than anything else.
Agreed in other contexts these are not the best choices, and there’s a reason they are not that in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Bam, Cam, Dam, Fam, Ham, Jam, Lam(b), Ma’am, Pam, Ram, W(h)am
Bank, Dank, Gank, Hank, Jank, Lank, Rank, Sank, Tank, Wank
Yeah… not great options, those.
Bam, Cam, Dam, Fam, Ham, Jam, Lam(b), Ma’am, Pam, Ram, W(h)am
Whoa, Black Betty!
Years ago I was on the phone with an airline agent and I had to read out my verification number. When I came to the letter V my brain short circuited and the only word I could think of was “vagina”. I sat there in a panic for probably about 10 seconds going “uhhh… uhhh…” before I finally remembered the word “valentine”.
L for… um Lesbian? Was one of my favourites
“R” as in “Robert Loggia”
Literally always what I think of!
“O” as in “Oh my god it’s Robert Loggia!”
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxc674GkBxoTKLUT6Qv5ffO5NQmbrP0DHL
S for… errr S for…
M as in Mancy?
I’ve not seen Strongdor in a long time…
I worked in a call centre about 10 years ago. one time some old, presumably white, old woman called in and when spelling her name included “N for N****r”
I was dumbfounded
We had those old alphabet books in school where N was “neger”
I believe the print date was around the 1950s. They were placed on bookshelves in classroms full of old books that i guess they never bothered to throw out.
The police rang my house once, and he told me where I could reach them, and spelled out his name. I started writing his name out, but by the fourth name, I was thinking wtf is going on. This guy was spelling out his name by using names for each letter. A for Alex, B for Bob.
Was his name Abraham?
