Picked it up without trying as a pilot. It’s used everywhere on the radio - for call signs especially. I like the way that two letters in combination conjure up a story, a two word image.
Yankee Victor
Golf Hotel
Romeo Tango
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Of course these can be used for the International Code of Signals. Basically it is a phrase book of standard phrases available in many languages that can be sent as one, two, or three characters, enabling ships to communicate emergency/safety information to each other regardless of the language spoken by the crews.
https://msi.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=msi_portal_page_62&pubCode=0006
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True story: was at a screening at the San Francisco Film Festival, and an older black, gay couple came in and sat in the row in front of me. Hardly noteworthy, but they both got up and left about fifteen minutes into the movie: Whiskey Romeo Zulu. I’m guessing they hadn’t picked it based on a shared interest in Argentine airline disasters…
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I like those - especially “R for mo” and “U for mism” - but I can’t seem to wrap my head or tongue around “E for brick”.
I’m sure it’ll come to me as soon as I click ‘Reply’ - ain’t that always the way?
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Weird, I always thought G was for goldilocks. How did she get through this without laughing?
Same word…
Hmm… “half a brick”, as in the stereotypical Gross Bodily Harm implement? But that’s already been used in “R for mo”…
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Euphorbic?
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One of my favorite things is when my pedantry kicks in and I check to confirm my beliefs, only to find out I had it wrong! Another fave is when someone incorrectly tries to correct me and I get to own them. Happened recently when I called someone a gourmand, and they claimed it only had a negative denotation.
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M is for the mud flaps she gave me for my pickup truck
O is for the oil I put on my hair
T is for T-Bird
H is for Haggard
E is for eggs
R is for redneck
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Only had a what now? I can’t imagine a downside to being a gourmand, unless it’s only having access to horrible food.
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This person, a Chomsky-trained linguistics prof, was insistent I had insulted him when I called him quite the gourmand after he rattled off a slew Michelin-star restaurants he’d visited. He still did not concede after I showed him the OED. I win!
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Learned it at twelve, thanks to my Ham Radio dad.
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It strikes me as odd that a linguistics professor has no idea how French works. Or had he watched The Meaning of Life too many times?
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My preferred phonetic alphabet…
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“Bravo”
“Thanks”
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Is it true the Atlanta airport uses “David” instead of “Delta” to avoid confusion caused by being a Delta Airlines hub?
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Ah, the cockney alphabet:
The bit I always half remembered was:
“C”
“C for miles?”
“Nah, C at Sarfend”
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