"in phonetics"

[Jonathan Lighter]

In WW1, "ack."

Hence, "ack-ack."

JL

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:10 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "in phonetics"
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> 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"
> >
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> >
> > 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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