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My name has an unusual spelling, so I always have to spell it on the phone. I've had issues every time I try to use the NATO alphabet for this, because several
by amalcon 8y ago
My name has an unusual spelling, so I always have to spell it on the phone. I've had issues every time I try to use the NATO alphabet for this, because several of the phonetics are names. E.g. someone named Matt might say:
"Matt, spelled Mike-Alpha-Tango-Tango"
And get the response:
"Ok Mike, now I need..."
- zakki 8y agoI am not familiar with NATO standards until I read this post. And I’m not an English native speaker. But what I get from NATO idea is take the first character from the word said in conversation. So when speaking with someone on the phone, sometimes I say “I” as Italy instead of India. And luckily they understand it. You may try “Monaco” instead of “Mike”.
- buzer 8y agoIt also avoids similar sounding things, word where it can be hard to figure out what the first letter was & words where the first letter is mute. There is a joke version of the alphabet that messes with all those rules. http://i.imgur.com/3CbAxSp.jpg http://i.imgur.com/3CbAxSp.jpg
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoI overheard a co-worker once trying to spell out a mailing list address to a customer using a NATO-like alphabet, but he began, "M as in Mary, L as in Larry..." We ribbed him pretty good for that. I even created my own Completely Useless Alphabet from that incident: A as in Aerie B as in Barry C as in Carrie D as in Dairy etc.