2w ago

S for Something which starts with S

197 comments

P for Pterodactyl
S for Sea
W for Why
E for Eye
G for Gnu
J for Jalapeño
- You're missing a few good ones.
  A for An
  C for Cay
  I for In
  K for Knight
  N as in No (a few of these work with "as in" but not with "for")
  O as in Other
  P as in Pose
  Q for Qing (since Jalapeño is allowed)
  T for The
  
  X as in Xi Jinping
- T as in tsunami.
  P as in phone.
  K as in knife or knee.
  G as in gnostic.
  X as in xylophone.
  D as in djembe.
  M as mnemonic.
  O as in opossum in certain locales.
  
  U as in updog
- Barenaked Ladies - Crazy ABC's
  
  Dang your comment wasn't there but by the time I copied the link from YouTube you beat me to it.
- "is that your first or last name"
  
  Yes it is
- G as in gnome.
- The Barenaked Ladies made a children's song with that exact premise.
- G for Gnu
  TIL English doesn't pronounce the G in gnu. Wild language.

My Battlefield 3 crew would designate objectives on voice coms as, "Ango, Bango, Chango, and Django".
- Sounds a little.. unchained
- Than is amazing, thank you hahaha.
- Bingo Bango Bongo
- Day made thank you.

I once had a client tell me, "T as in... T."
Yeah, that was helpful.
- I mean surely it was "T as in Tea"
  Or maybe "T as in Tee"
  
  Maybe it was in their mind. But those are still phonetically the same, and similar to P, E, C, etc.
  
  Or "T as in Ti"
- 'T' as in "TT Quattro Roadster"

M as in Mancy

I can remember one time:
"P for Potato",
"B for... err... i dunno, Botato?".
- Potato
  Botato
  Brother the explicit purpose of the phonetic alphabet is to make all of the letters audibly distinguishable by ensuring none of them rhyme
  
  Boh-tah-toe
  
  Good point Cotato and Kotato would certainly be a problem.
  
  I can understand your confusion, but the first one he pronounced "po-tah-to".
- Bruh... It's P for "pterodactyl".
- https://youtu.be/qe0B6_Ccg7w
- Brotato

Love my copy of "P is for Pterodactyl". Great book, very uneducational.
- E for Eye
- A for Aardvark
  
  G as in gnosis.
  
  A for Avada Kedavera

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 way that my impulsive brain SCREAMS at me to say swear words when I'm doing it... I'd never say like the N word but I just want to say B for Bitch sometimes, y'know? A as in asshole.

"T for Terrorist"
The CS Representative I was talking to: "Sir, this is an Airline"
- Be sure to use L for Luigi when verifying info over the phone with your health insurance.
  
  Those pesky phonetically-similar letters! Try "D as in Delay, Deny, Depose".
- "Oh my bad, my bad ..
  B for bomb. T for twin towers. N for nine eleven was a inside job."

I had too many customers get confused when I asked, "and that is pudenda spelled P as in Papa, U as in Uniform..." customer interrupts, "why are you talking like a radio?"
Had a regular that would spell it in NATO, and said he served in artillery. Heard just fine on his good ear, tinittus was just a low hum.
- Why are we all not talking like radios??

I was frustrated with the phone support agent and used ‘S, as in Stupid’ and I got hung up on.
- "H as in hilarious"

alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot etc. it's SO HELPFUL when talking on the phone. I learned them all because no one could figure out my name.
- TBF you could just tell them.
  
  lol. k.
- Foxtrot...? Is that some kind of furry thing????
  :3
  
  Way to out yourself as an uncultured swine who has never danced foxtrot smdh

“K for knight, P for pterodactyl, G for gnome”
- There's a World's Worst Alphabet Book that has those.
  
  I personally like the words that sound like other letters: A as in Aye, E as in Eye, S as in See.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMs5dcHvW4Q

T as in tardigrade

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.
- Standard for police is to use the NATO phonetic alphabet simply because it's what everybody uses and it avoids confusion rather than it necessarily been the best system.
  For example prior to the NATO phonetic alphabet the UK military used to have their own, so perhaps that's where they got it from?
  I think it was
  Apple.
  Bob
  Candle.
  Can't remember what D was.
  Elizabeth
  
  Here's a rabbit hole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_military_phonetic_spelling_alphabets#RAF_radiotelephony_spelling_alphabet
  
  Standard for police is to use the NATO phonetic alphabet
  idk about other places, but the LAPD don't.
- Afer Alex, Beefer Bob, who the fuck are all these people?
- Was his name Abraham?

M as in Mancy?

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.
- 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
  
  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.
  
  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.
- 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
  
  TBH "Sierra" is a pretty obscure word. I didn't know about it until the Mac OS release with that name. And given how often "c" makes an "s" sound, that sounds like a reasonable mistake to make if you've never heard the word before.
  
  Maybe a fan of singer songwriter Ciara, with her song 1-2 step.

My last name has a z in it and I had a customer service person say "z as in xylophone?"

A for 'Orses
B for mutton
C for yourself
etc
- That's gotta be a two Ronnie's joke
- Oh my god, I haven't heard that since my dad died. He was born in London in 1931 ("a true Cockney") and used to say that all the time.
  Thanks, that's a nice memory.

Okay, that's K, as in KY Jelly. O, as in OnlyFans. L as in Lo Wang. A as in Asshole. N as in...

R as in Robert Loggia
- O as in "Oh my god, it's Robert Loggia"
  
  B as in, “By god, that’s Robert Loggia”

C for [ˌt͡ʃɛ.kʰɪ.sl̥oʊ̯.ˈvɑ.kʰi.ə] (Yes I did narrow transcription for the purpose of making it look worse 💀)
- nice link lol (at least on sync)

N as in "pneumatic", U as in "eulogy", K as in "Québec"...
- You're really trying to mess people up with Québec aren't you?

L for… um Lesbian? Was one of my favourites
- Imagine calling support and only using sexual words to spell things.

- I've not seen Strongdor in a long time...

Easy. A is for apple B is for bapple C is for capple ...

C for Czechoslovakia may be a slight improvement over my go-tos:
A for Antidisestablishmentarianism
B for Buckminsterfullerene
C for Counterrevolutionaries
- M for...

Always been a petty pet peeve of mine. When I was training customer service reps I'd hand out a sheet and suggest they nail it up in their cube.
So much easier when everyone's on the same page. The military uses the phonetic alphabet because it's crystal clear, even over sketchy coms.
Why would you make up some bullshit of your own, having to constantly stop and think about it, when the pros already have a working system?! FFS, you don't even have to make the effort to memorize it, just use it a few times, done, it's in your head forever. Now I'm getting mad. (Told you I was petty about this.)
Anyone know why they use "niner"? Doesn't seem to mix up with other numbers.
EDIT: That's 2 band names I came out with today.
Petty Pet Peeve™
Anal Rail Gun™
- Niner is because it's the NATO phonetic alphabet, and they don't want it to get mixed up with nein.
  
  That simple?! FINALLY makes sense, and I've been wondering for years and years.
- What an odd take. Why should people memorize something they pretty much never need? Just because using a different word might inconvenience someone a tiny bit at some point in time?
  
  If you talk to people on the phone for a living, yes, use a consistent and unambiguous system for reading out letters and numbers.
  It's also beneficial for the customer to do so. Conversations go much faster when everyone is singing from the same sheet.
  As to need? Do you never call for customer or tech support? There's always something that needs repeated or spelled out.

My favourite was E as in estrogen
- for the brits would it be 'O'? that is great too.

"R" as in "Robert Loggia"
- "O" as in "Oh my god it's Robert Loggia!"
- Literally always what I think of!

Q-cumber looks like a name for a tech startup which name was chosen as a bet or something like that.
- I bet they manufacture AI-enabled vibrators
  
  "At Q-cumber, we bring the innovation and synergy of AI into the bedroom, to maximalize your pleasure in the bed, either with a close partner or not."
- Cucumber is a testing framework (more or less). So I could see it as some company doing consulting. https://cucumber.io/
- Pretty sure there was once a chain of salad bar type restaurants named QCumber
- A tech startup in the Bond universe.

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".

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
- It's useful when you're talking to somebody on a bad line who doesn't really understand English all that well. Such as when you're trying to cancel your ISP, because they are always in India.
- I learnt it to work in a call centre ten years ago and can still remember them all with a bit of effort, but I still don't know the Dutch one, which is more likely to come in handy now and is all people's names.

Drag tries to talk NATO to the call center people and they don't understand
- I wish NATO phonetic was more commonly understood.
- The brilliance is that it works in other languages too. Don't know about French/Italian but for a Norwegian it's usable. Only Charlie, Mike, and Yankee i think would not be understood if said as spelled in Norwegian.
- The number of times I've started rattling off a string phonetically and just received confused silence in return.
  With how good phone connections have generally gotten I usually just spell it out normally then specify phonetically on the sound-a-like letters in the middle where enunciation and/or attention span may affect reception "Context that's C-O-N as in Nancy-T-E-X-T"
  Also providing the word before spelling it helps immensely because the recipient will already have an idea of what to expect and can verify afterwords that they transcribed correctly

M as in Mancy!

Q for queue

P as in Phoebe
H as in Hoebe
O as in Oebe
E as in Ebe
- M as in Mancy
  
  I have a had time not saying that when having to clarify what letter

The number of people that ask if i meant C when I say Sierra is too damn high.

My favorite was when a guy was giving me his email and said "B, as in Alabama"

If ham radio taught me anything is the phonetic alphabet. Some people have been in the military. For me, I’m a ham.
- could always take them for a ride...
  R as in dit dahh dit
  U as in dit dit dahh
  M as it dahh dahh
  ...
- What's interesting is hearing sugar for S. I looked it up and it looks like there was a different phonetic alphabet that used sugar for S. But yeah, whatever works works.

Eggplant, xerxes, crybaby, overbite, narwhal.

For anyone who needs it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxc674GkBxoTKLUT6Qv5ffO5NQmbrP0DHL
S for.... errr S for.....

I used to have to be on the phones A LOT, and when I was requested to do this I would use the "Pasta Phoenetic" alphabet. You wouldn't believe how many different types of pasta there is!
- Google isn't finding anything for me, did you make it up yourself?
  
  Haha, yes I did. I ended up making a list for my coworkers... I do remember like 3 or 4 letters with no real match, so had to get creative with those.

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...

Obligatory Monk clip

I often use "M as in mayhem." I know it's "Mike" but that's boring.
- Gotcha N for nayhem
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neum
  It's a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina
- N as in Nike

Queuecumber

It's not that the 'phonetic alphabet' make any sense either though.
- Why should it though, it's just an agreed upon tool.

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.

When I used it everyday I knew it by heart. Now its faded from the forefront of my mind and sometimes it just isn't worth the effort to recall it. If it mattered I would care.

I have a friend who, years later, still brings up when I said "K as In Cat." That poor customer
- Just say you're Dutch, where cat translates to kat

https://lemmy.world/post/23884231

My eternal gratitude to anyone who can find the old Jonathan Katz stand up bit where he was spelling things out ridiculously to a 411 representative. I must have taped over my old VHS with it.

J as in George is my personal favorite
- J as in jalapeño

Germans use ČS for "Tschechoslowakei". Yes, really − not only is Č not in the word, it's also not in the German alphabet.
- not only is Č not in the word, it's also not in the German alphabet.
  Well, it could be... suppose the German alphabet decided it needed Lebensraum and decided to annex the Sudeten alphabet.
  
  Akshully, the Sudeten annexed in 1938 were specifically chosen as German-speaking regions

197 comments