A for Alpha, B for Bravo, S for Shawerma… WaitWhat?
Ever come through giving an address, that you have to spell the letters? Ever heard someone saying the magic spell Alpha Bravo Delta Delta which means ABDD as a word!
Well, those are called the NATO Phonetic Alphabets. Basically, we use keywords to represent the letter and eliminate any confusion when dictating an address or answering security questions on the phone— most often use cases.
I first came across them back in 2014, hearing my dad giving an address. I was thinking “Why the hell is he saying non-related words, instead of just saying the letter itself”.
A lot of reasons could be found I believe especially when the English language is spoken with different dialects and different accents, take for example the Arabic way of saying the letter “p” is “B” so instead of saying “people” it appears “beebuul”, or the Russian way of saying the combination “th” as “z”, and so on. These days, where you may have a mixture of ethnicities and cultures, it means you will have different ways of spelling a letter and it implies relying on a standard somehow.
I was young and not aware that it is a standard, so the next time I remember giving my address over the phone I squish my ultra brain to come up with the words… Believe me, it became never worse :D :
Other: Sir, can you give your address?
Me: Hmm, Ok. Street C for Charlie, F for friendship — the guy over the phone was silent for a moment!- then I continued, C for culture — here I ruined it and then dictate it as “this is the letter c after a, b” and so on.
Just to mention, some communities developed their own collection of key words, like the names of cities or states …etc.
We are using this phonetic standard mostly in cities with a mixture of backgrounds that may be from the far east, or far west.
I b — b for believe — that, as more we are able to travel, re-settle then re-settle and re-settle and then travel around the world, the more it became fun to find a way we can understand each other more as humans.
It is just like a cable adaptor where you try to connect two different cables inputs in some way, here we connect ourselves!
