"in phonetics"

[Wilson Gray]

I wonder why _A_ is such a problem? "Abel" in WWII, "alfa" during my
military service, now "adam." And there's "bravo" vs. "baker." But
"charlie" appears to be money.

-Wilson

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Arnold Zwicky<zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â "in phonetics"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> a little while ago, on an episode of NCIS, Special Agent Gibbs (played
> by Mark Harman), annoyed when people failed to understand some proper
> names, exhorted everyone to say the names "in phonetics" -- by which
> he meant that they should use what's known in some circles (especially
> military ones) as a "phonetic alphabet". Â the technical term for these
> is "spelling alphabet", but you can see why no one would want to say
> that you should use "spelling".
>
> a spelling alphabet is a kind of code for the letters of the alphabet,
> in which each letter is represented by a word beginning with that
> letter: Adam, Bravo, Charlie,...; Abel, Baker, Charlie,...
>
> the wikipedia entry gives a number of spelling alphabets, for english
> and a number of other languages:
> Â  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_alphabet
>
> i didn't find "phonetic alphabet" (in this sense) under either
> "phonetic" or "alphabet" in the OED. Â or "spelling alphabet" under
> either "spelling" or "alphabet".
>
> arnold
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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