20
votes
NATO alphabet
Something more lighthearted:
My wife has been doing a project that requires her to get people's information over the phone much more than usual. This leads to her and them using unofficial phonetic alphabet terms ("A as in aardvark" instead of "A as in alpha"). This is usually fine except when they choose a word that is ambiguous or just a word not known to the other party. Someone said "V as in Veya" to her, and we still don't know what a Veya is.
This got me thinking about what inappropriate words you could use. I suggested "V as in Vasectomy".
So how about it, Tilderists? What are your "wrong answers only" suggestions for a NOGO phonetic alphabet?
As Sterling Archer once stated, M as in Mancy.
as a general rule, i believe NOGO words should generally be short so you can still rattle them off as quickly as NATO phonetic. some ideas to get the party started:
There's the classic "P as in psychology", found frequently in Tintin when Thompson is introducing himself.
But I like "G as in ghoti".
Wow!
"Ghoti" was the only word written on the board when we walked in to our first English class with the new teacher in 8th grade.
I liked her. She kind of got me, and showed no sign if knowing any of my history that constantly got in the way with everyone else in school.
Great flashback! Thanks <3
I just now got the joke that the P in psychology in silent.
My other favorite is Thomson's "without a P, as in Venezuela."
Hmm... Can we do silent starts only? :D Off the top of my head...
A as in aesthetic
B as in bdellium
D as in Djibouti
E as in ewe
G as in
gnocchighoti is way better :DH as in hour
I as in eye (ok, technically breaks the pattern, but c'mon)
J as in jalapeño
K as in knight
M as in mnemonic
N as in Nguyen (I'm proud of this one)
X as in Xhosa
With how common the letter E is, I think it'd be funnier to alternate between 'ewe' and 'eye' randomly.
E as in Ewe and Y as in You are nice together
Oh, I like "E as in EWE" - I made a full bad alphabet below and I used "S as in SEE" to the same effect.
We had some other overlaps, like Djibouti and Mnemonic.
I used to work for an armored transportation company and one of our responsibilities was balancing ATMs. Checking anything in or out of the vault was an affair that required 2 people and you had to say everything out loud. ATMs were often named with number-letter combinations like "5787F". We all knew the NATO alphabet but after doing this every single day for a hundred different packages we'd invariably end up thinking up the silliest words to try and get the other person cracking up.
I don't have any specific examples, just wanted to tell my story and say that I see you OP and I support this thread.
I feel seen!
My personal favorite take on this is silent letters:
A as in Aisle
G as in Gnocchi
K as in Knight
M as in Mnemonic
P as in Pterodactyl
But to stick to your original theme:
C as in Chlamydia
E as in Enema
H as in Hemorrhoid
L as in Laxative
P as in Priapism
Always been a fan of these sorts of things. Here's one example that's been floating around forever.
I personally really like A for Aye and E for Eye as well as P for Pterodactyl
There's even a book for that one
One of my favorite jokes:
Why can't you hear a pterodactyl going to the bathroom?
Because the P is silent!
I've gotta say, F - Phoenetic really got me.
Reminds me of this classic.
It's time to share my personal favorite, the MANGO alphabet!
Ay-ango
Bango
Chango
Dango
Eango
And so on...
It has many faults and no official adoption outside of my circle but it's our go to anytime we're having to spell something out.
This one made me Lango Oango Lango
Ooh, I like this. Going with my own Wumbo alphabet.
Bumbo
Chumbo
Dumbo
Fumbo
Gumbo
Jumbo
Mumbo
Rumbo
Tumbo
and my personal favorite
Wumbo
Fell asleep before I could add mine, which mostly turn on making someone uncomfortable on the phone.
Arrested
Bonehead
Crackpot
Dumbass
Excoriate
Fallout
Gunge
Hellfire
Icepick
Judas
Kamikaze
Limp
Maggot
Nausea
Osteosarcoma
Parole
Queasy
Rectum
Slovenly
Twisted
Unapologetic
Vasectomy
Waxy
eXsanguinate
Yellow
Zit
Oh man, I want to be on a call with a random person where they say “…and R as in Rectum”. I would totally lose it and laugh uncontrollably.
I came up with a bad version of the NATO1 Phonetic2 Alphabet.
I tried to make the words obfuscate the letter in question, or make the clarifying word easily confusable via rhyme or similar sound with other letters, or make the word too lengthy to be convenient.
1 - while maybe popularized by NATO, this particular alphabet was actually created by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
2 - it's not a phonetic alphabet at all, but a spelling alphabet. Since English is so goofy, it is actually common that the spelling and the phonetics do not seem particularly related, and this is used specifically for spelling and not for phonetics
This one got me. 1000 points.
Your notes there reminded me of a RobWords video I saw recently about that and the history of the "NATO Phonetic" Alphabet!
Lol, perhaps unsurprisingly, that link is purple for me. ;)
B as in Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
At least once a week, when my son leaves the house to go somewhere, I'll say "Buffalo... oh wait, I mean BYE SON".
You forgot a few Buffalo. The full phrase is
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
Reminds me a lot of the book P is for Pterodactyl
I've committed the whole NATO alphabet to memory for reasons, but before that, I used words/names that started with a sound as close to the actual letter's pronunciation as possible. There are a few (F, H, L, M, N, R, S, X, and Y) that I just couldn't ever come up with a word that started with that letter and required you to say "Ehff", "Aych", "Ell", "Em", "En", "Ar", "Es", "Ecks", "Why") but my list informally was (and I was surprised to learn a few of these were NATO already):
Apex, Bee-Bee, Citizen, Deacon, Eagle, Foxtrot, Genius, Harold, Isaac, Jason, Kangaroo, Lima, Money, Novice, Oregon, Peter, Q-bert, Roger, Sam, Team, Uniform, Venus, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yellow, Zebra
But NATO is demonstrably cleaner/better and that's some of why I use it.
I propose the alphabet from Crazy ABC's by the Barenaked Ladies. A is for aisle, B is for bdellium, c is for czar...