A Cool Guide: After I said “E as in egg” to customer service I looked up this guide

Please use this and don't make up your own shit on the fly. It's very understandable both as a rep and a customer.

M as in Mancy

"No, I said P! P for pterodactyl!"

Edit: Though, that said, the point of the phonetic alphabet is they are very distinguishable words that sound nothing like one another. Even making out just "-a-a" you know it was papa, P. So as long as you know how to spell pterodactyl...

Not sure about why people are surprised by this alphabet. It’s been in use for quite some time in its current form. I work in aviation and we always use this for radio communications. Obviously the military does too.

“M, as in Mancy!”

https://youtu.be/_4jxLxZrMfs?si=RpQOJG4Fz-Me8zSF

I can't remember this guide but I remember the Android Phonetic Alphabet

Alpha
Beta
Cupcake
Donut
Eclair
Froyo
Gingerbread
Honeycomb
Ice Cream
Jelly Bean
KitKat
Lollipop
Marshmallow
Nougat
Oreo
Pie
Quiche
Red Velvet
Sugar Cookie
Tiramisu
Upside Down Cake
Vanilla
Waffle

There are no other letters

When I was a kid, I was in a clan for Battlefield Vietnam that took itself waaaaay too seriously, had a good number of JROTC kids that insisted we all needed to know this, the NATO phonetic alphabet.

We were using teamspeak, had a session where the group leader stood us all in a line, and one by one wanted us to sound it off.

Guy 1: Alpha!

Guy 2 (me): Bravo!

Guy 3: Catholic!

Group Lead: sighs

shoots Guy 3 in the face

It is 100% more fun to make them up yourself though

When I worked IT helpdesk I created my own one of these. Others photocopied it, they were photocopied. Years later I dropped in and saw one of the new staff with my phonetic alphabet stuck to the side of his screen. (I think they were also still using my mainframe login ID)

Egg

My favorite is asking a call Rep if I can switch to phonetic, and then rattling off the spellings when given the go ahead.

The only reason I have it drilled into my head is because the warehouse I work at uses voice for confirming locations.

I have no idea what it is with the letter "I" that throws me off. I've been using this alphabet since I joined the military ~15 years ago, and for some reason "I" still turns into "Igloo", "Indigo" or "Israel" most of the time. It's just that one singular letter that I can never remember!

Average Canadian: "Oh yeah, I got this one easy bud!"

Alright, for your final test: how do you spell Quebec?

AC: "Oh, for sure, that one there is easy! It's, uh... Q, for... uh..."

...

AC: "Q... for... Kay-beck..."

When I first started working at a callcenter, I quickly went "oh I need to learn a phonetic alphabet" and printed and posted the NATO alphabet at my desk

I memorized it on my commute to work. I taped it to my dash and practiced on the license plates of the cars on the highway. I took it off my dash once I could read street signs out loud before passing them.

All the cool kids learned it from the bloodhound gang.

Anal Colon Anal Butthole

E for egg isn't even consistent throughout the English-speaking world. That vowel might be quite different in something like South African or Kiwi English compared to other dialects.

X is X-ray??

And F is Foxtrot but not just Fox??

Am I the only that thinks this is crazy?

Lima balls…

I was in the Army for 6 years, yet whenever I try to think of the letter M my brain just short circuits to "Movember".

The only one I don't like is Z is for Zulu. I've never heard of that word before and it could easily be mistaken for Hulu. Z should be changed to Zebra.

there are other versions that would be more suitable to the public….

Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Item, Jig, King, Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle, Victor, William, X-ray, Yoke, Zebra.

Adam, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Edward, Frank, George, Henry, Ida, John, King, Lincoln, Mary, New York, Ocean, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Thomas, Union, Victor, William, X-Ray, Young, Zero.

….
any common words will word