The phonetic alphabet and the modern world.

[ColinTheAmpMan1]

Originally Posted by Dave Moll

I never said it was - just that an earlier post reminded me of it.

Like with Cockney rhyming slang, it's more to obfuscate than to clarify!

It is true that you didn't say it was a phonetic alphabet, but PhilG4SPZ in post #19 did.....
Colin.

[G6Tanuki]

I've always thought the sibilance of Oscar and Sierra made them rather likely to be lost in lightning-generated static 'crashes'.

(Otto was used for preference in some countries rather than Oscar

[IanBland]

russell_w_B

Yes, but virtually everyone knows the word sugar, and it doesn't rhyme with anything else. Which also is a reasonable argument for "o for orange" by the way

[OscarFoxtrot]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

In international circles you need to tread carefully: speaking to a German some years ago I read out a phone-number including "Nul" "Zwo" and "Funnuf"

The person at the other end was East-German and my pronunciation brought back bad memories of the Communist Stasi-era: the West-Germans were at the time using "Zero", "Zwei" and "Funf".

I was taught that Zwei was two but say Zwo when reading phone numbers to distinguish between Zwei and Drei.

[emeritus]

When I was learning German at school circa 1960, were were taught to use "Zwo" instead of "Zwei" when using the telephone, and zero was "Null".

However we were also taught that there is a greater diversity in pronunciation of German between different parts of Germany than there is with English in the UK. This was confirmed by a German from North Germany that I once knew, who said he had great difficulty in understanding the local dialect in Munich.

[ben]

Originally Posted by OscarFoxtrot

I was taught that Zwei was two but say Zwo when reading phone numbers to distinguish between Zwei and Drei.

Likewise. It's a practical thing.
In aviation English, pilots are taught to to avoid words like 'can't' where the clarity of the negative can easily be impaired by a)the speaker's pronunciation or b) ellipsis/the 't' being 'swallowed by the subsequent word.

[Oldcodger]

I think you will find that in any safety critical situation/organisation , along with phonetic alphabet, folk are taught to choose words which are difficult to confuse with something similar.
Go on any Railway track safety course and there's always, and not dependant on the level of the trainees (folks going on the basic one and refreshers get the same training as a person who could take control of a work site) a section on how to communicate. It's not uncommon for trainees to be faced with a test paper with a road sign showing some place in Wales and asked to write down the name using the phonetic alphabet.
Network rail at one time ran communication courses to make staff ( on and off the track ) aware of problems.
As for phonetic being used more and more as common sense departs, if the old rule of the message giver asking for the message to be repeated back to ensure it had been taken correctly ,then ALL messages would be imparted correctly

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Oldcodger

As for phonetic being used more and more as common sense departs, if the old rule of the message giver asking for the message to be repeated back to ensure it had been taken correctly ,then ALL messages would be imparted correctly

I don't think it's that "common sense has departed", I think it's that these days you're very more likely to encounter names for people/places/things in languages-other-than-English so the opportunity-for-confusion increases.
Even the formulaic conversations of ATC or radio-amateurs, where a degree of contextual predictiveness comes into play, still needs the support of phonetics.

[I recently worked someone in Uusikaupunki in southwest Finland. That one took several repeat-backs to get !]

[G0HZU_JMR]

Originally Posted by emeritus

When I was learning German at school circa 1960, were were taught to use "Zwo" instead of "Zwei" when using the telephone, and zero was "Null"

When I was a student in the mid 1980s I can remember listening on 70cms SSB to Bob, G3ZNZ (based in Driffield?) who used to be a regular on the calling frequency. He would sign himself phonetically as "Guatemala Drei Zeppelin Norvegan Zeppelin" and would often speak fluent german. He used to beam out towards europe aiming to contact german stations even during flat conditions. I think he had a favourable location and a decent antenna system because he seemed to manage quite a few contacts each evening. I think he was retired and the rumour was that he was stationed overseas during the war because he could speak fluent german.

[OscarFoxtrot]

Originally Posted by Oldcodger

It's not uncommon for trainees to be faced with a test paper with a road sign showing some place in Wales and asked to write down the name using the phonetic alphabet.

Does the NATO phonetic alphabet have words for the single letters ll and dd

words for the single letters ll and dd

Words (plural) indeed lima lima and delta delta. What are the single 'letters' for ll and dd (I count two for each). Interesting question though.

[ChristianFletcher]

I work on the railway as part of my job. I remember how amazed I was when did my trackside training safety course and that the phonetic alphabet was a big part of the exam. Luckily I was doing my Ham radio licenses at the time. Still don't use them very frequently and always get them wrong even now when I'm under pressure. I'm still mic shy.

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

What are the single 'letters' for ll and dd (I count two for each). Interesting question though.

The Welsh "dd" is equivalent to the Old English edh (ð). The Welsh consonant represent represented by "ll", however, seems pretty much unique to Welsh. They, along with a few others are, nevertheless, considered single letters (despite being written as two), and words starting with them are listed separately in a Welsh dictionary.

I agree, however, that this is probably irrelevant in the current context of so-called phonetic alphabets.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by IanBland

Yes, but virtually everyone knows the word sugar, and it doesn't rhyme with anything else. Which also is a reasonable argument for "O for orange" by the way

Likely O Orange and S Sugar were used during WWII, according to Home-Guard signalling drill.

If it was good enough then...

[ColinTheAmpMan1]

I think the baby might be going with the bathwater.....

The NATO phonetic alphabet is established and regularly used. There is absolutely no point in complaining about it or suggesting changes that might make it better. It will continue as it is; you might as well try to change Russian.

Colin.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by ColinTheAmpMan1

I think the baby might be going with the bathwater.....

The NATO phonetic alphabet is established and regularly used.

Perhaps that was said about earlier phonetic alphabets. Are you suggesting evolution stops here?

[AC/HL]

The OP wasn't referring to the NATO alphabet, or indeed any of it's predecessors or parodies, only that ad-hoc usage of phonetics is getting commonplace. I had occasion to contact my bank recently, and the automatic voice menu asked me to confirm my postcode using words. Any word as I recall, not necessarily the standard code. Not the numbers though, they must be clearer.

[IanBland]

Numbers in some accents are not very clear. Again mentioning London's "multicultural English", the strongest form of it has virtually indistinguishable two and three. The interesting thing for me is that despite listening to it for much of the day, it's an accent I simply cannot emulate myself particularly in these finer points. The phonemes are really quite weird.

Maybe we're going to have to add in in bingo caller definitions for numbers soon. "Two body positive transwomen, 88."

[emeritus]

Funnily enough, this morning I was browsing through a copy of poems by the infamous Scottish poet McGonagall (he of the "Silvery Tay" fame), and came across this verse in a poem about his visit to London in the 1870's:

Oh! Mighty city of London! you are wonderful to see,
And thy beauties no doubt fill the tourist's 'heart with glee:
But during my short stay, and while wandering there,
Mr Spurgeon was the only man I heard speaking proper English I do declare.

(Mr Spurgeon was a then-well-known Baptist preacher. During his visit, McGonagall had attended a meeting where Spurgeon had addressed an audience of 6000.)

[ColinTheAmpMan1]

Originally Posted by russell_w_b

Perhaps that was said about earlier phonetic alphabets. Are you suggesting evolution stops here?

Not exactly, Russell. I believe what I'm saying is that the influence of this forum on possible changes in the NATO phonetic alphabet is probably minimal. Since it is used by so many people in radio/telephone conversation, any variations unilaterally introduced are more than likely going to confuse and ultimately be rejected. I have no idea about how it all came about, but I believe that it was probably put together by some kind of committee or task-group. The main requirements, as I understand it, are that the words begin with the letter that they represent, that they are recognisable and that they are not easily confused with other words. Quite a task, I would say.

There have been some comments about the validity of "O Oscar" and that "Orange" might be preferable. It isn't about whether something rhymes with anything else, so much as whether it could be misheard as something else. I suggest that in a poor-quality radio conversation, "orange" could indeed be misheard as "porridge". Of course, that could be true of any or all of the accepted NATO phonetic alphabet, but since it has become established, it works.

It's also worth considering that you don't need to have committed the phonetic alphabet to memory to be able to understand it as a listener, only to be able to transmit it.

Colin.