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Short Stuff: NATO Alphabet · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and Dave's not, but
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: he would be if he weren't doing something else right now.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: He sends his love and kisses to all of you
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: from Dave this short stuff.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: That's right. We're talking about what's called the phonetic alphabet,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: and we're like, well, I don't know what that is.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It's a phonetic alphabet.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: You do know what it is. If you've ever seen
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: a war movie, or if you're hooked on phonics, or
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: if you're hooked on phonics, or you know, you may
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: not be using the actual phonetic alphabet that they finally
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: agreed on, which we'll get to, but you may be
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: using your own version. If you've ever been on a
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: customer service call.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I've done that.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: And you've had to, you know, say, well, my name
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: is Chuck Jack No Chuck see as in Chuck h
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: is in Harley Davidson in Ubiquitous, uh C is in
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: can you believe I'm having the spell? Chuck out and
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: k is in Kangaroo poop.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: That's a good one, Chuck. I liked that last one.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I never know what to say. When I go
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: to do that, I know, and I feel like I
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: get stumped, which is remarkable that like I can't think
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: of a SA word, which is crazy, especially with the
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: sea word.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: We just walk on past that one, Chuck, Why would
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: you possibly want to assign words to letters when you're
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: talking to somebody on a customer service hotline?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I have an answer. And by the way, thanks
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: to popular mechanics and NATO DOT I n T in
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: particular for this, you would want to do that because,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of this stuff started out after
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: well it all started out after radio communication was born.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: When they were the excellent point I hadn't considered, you know.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: When they were telegrams were the way that people communicated.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It was very easy to see what someone meant because
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: it was spelled out for you. But once radio coom started,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: and especially in things like war, if you're trying to
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: say report your position because you're being bombed, the person
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: on the other end they can't see you, they can't
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: reach your lips. They're hearing bombing going on and people
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: probably yelling and screaming, and it's chaotic, and so you
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: really want to get that right. So they started spelling
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: this stuff out just to make sure they knew the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: correct message.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, makes total sense. One of those things is so
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: obvious that it could smack you on the forehead, but
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you just don't think about that. They just did not
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: need it before radio and people who use the radio
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a lot and really really need clear communication because the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: stuff that they're talking about can often be life and death.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Those are the ones you'll most typically find using that
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: phonetic or NATO alphabet.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's also I mean, the very foundation of
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: ventriloquism is based on the idea that there are sounds
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: that sound like other sounds and that can very confusing,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and ventriloquism you exploit that by saying those other sounds
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: have less lip movement as a substitute. But if you're
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: on a radio communication with some communica, is that what
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: you would say? Yeah, then you don't want to get
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: someone THH confused with an F you know what I mean?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you mean. Man, That can lead
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: to disaster.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: There's been a long kind of weird history with this though. Yeah,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: as far as agreeing on it. The first one came
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: about in the nineteen twenties, from the telecom industry, the
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: International Telecommunications Union, and I say, we read all these versions.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: They're great. They use geographical names, typically town, sometimes states.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: There was one I had to look up for X.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: It's ZAMTHEP.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I think you should just read the alphabet. Do it?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I want to hear it.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Josh Style, Amsterdam, Baltimore, Casablanca, Denmark, Edison, New Jersey, Florida, Galiopoli.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Whatever you entered, it a bell.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: It's what you do.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Whoever I was speaking to in nineteen twenty would have
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: known I meant g okay Havana, Italia. They put a
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: little extra spicy sauce on that one.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Jerusalem kilogram makes no sense, Liverpool, Madagascar, New York, Oslo, Paris, Quebec, Roma, Santiago, Tripoli, Uppsila, Valencia, Washington.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: There's that zan thiep again, Yokohama and Zurich.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to picture you on the war communication.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: When you no, he said, a Galiopoly is a no.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: It is a no letter for Galiopoli, right, Galipoly No,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: he said, a Galiopoly.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: They accidentally in big Galiopoli when they meant to go
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to Gallipoli.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know why, all of a sudden you're on
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: a communicate with Italy.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I have always said galiopoly too. Really, Yeah, I like
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: it more. I'm gonna continue saying it because I say
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: it so infrequently. Why change something like that?
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Man, that extra val. I'm gonna start calling you Josiah.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okaya, the same as calling me Joshua.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Oh is it the same name. Basically, it's the.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Same number of syllables. Oh, stop Josiah.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Joshua militarily speaking. So that was the telecoms industry. On
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: the military side, they started using the Army Navy's phonetic alphabet,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: which they called the Abel Baker Alphabetic alphabetic alphabet because
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: those are the first two and the Brits use this
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: one as well. And I'll go through this one, Abel Baker,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Charlie dogg Easy Fox, George Howe. That's a tough one
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: item Jig King, Love, Mike nan Obo, Peter Queen, Roger Sugar,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: tear Is and t A r E, Uncle Victor William
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: X Ray Yoke and Zebra or Zebra if you're a brit.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: My favorite combination is Roger Sugar.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah or easy Dog. I had a guy the end
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: of the day. I just got to say this, and
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I'm even going to name the theater the Landmark Midtown Cinema.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a good one.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: I went to get popcorn at an eleven minute AM
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: showing of the new Indiana Jones movie, and I said,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: is that stuff fresh? And the guy went, yeah, I
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: popped it this morning. And I went because I know
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: that wasn't true. Probably they re use popcorn all theaters do.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I said, okay, I'll take it based solely on that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I go to eat the popcorn in the theater. It
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: is really stale. I was gonna say, like, who cares,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: but I was like, you know what, that was eight bucks.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go back up there and just get my
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: money back, just very kindly. I very kindly went to
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: do that. They had to call the manager. I said
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: that it wasn't good and it's no big deal. I
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: just want to see the movie and blah blah blah.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And the guy that sold it to me with his
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: back to me, went dog, it tastes fine, and puts
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: them in his mouth and to his little buddy start going.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: For real.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I usually very non confrontational, but I went,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: did you just call me dog? And he looked at
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: me and didn't say anything. I think I scared him
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: a little bit o good, and I went did you
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: call me dog? And the manager just looked at me,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: and I gave her the kind of look of like
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: this is where this is your turn?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Now? Yeah you're you were like, you gave her You're
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: not going to fire him.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Look, I don't want to fire, but like say something.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: She didn't say anything. She gave me my money, and
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: on the way out, I did the very old man thing,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: which I didn't think I would ever do. I was
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: just like, hey, man, just so you know, forget I'm
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: a customer, human to human. Talking to someone like that
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: just isn't a way to go about life. Take it
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: or leave it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Wow, man, did you drop your microphone? I did nice work.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: So you're doing great Landmark Cinemas.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It's a good theater. There's just one problem, employee.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: I know, all right. Sorry. I had to get that
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: off my chest, and that seemed like a good time
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: to do it. So we finished up with Zebra to
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: wrap this up before we took a break. Ten years
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: after that, the IATA, the International Air Transport Association said, listen,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: everyone's complaining because this is to English English centric. So
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: let's swap out a few of these words. And they said, great,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: and now we can agree. In November nineteen fifty one
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: for civil aviation only, Yeah, they swapped out what they
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: coca for Charlie, Echo for Easy, Foxtrot for Fox, gold
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: for George, and then you know other things. India's in there.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Instead of item.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Delta, they which one delta for dog.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The guy could have said delta. It tastes fine,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: but they swapped out some stuff just to make it
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: a little less sort of I guess American.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing that I was surprised and never knew
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: is that Alpha is not spelled Alpha. It's al Fa.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Did you know that?
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Well? In the in the other version, I think the
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: first version was Pha, right or was it always FA?
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I wonder if it's like product
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: placement from the Alpha Insurance company, like they sponsored that
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: particular phonetic alphabet.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Oh no, actually it was Alpha because the only previous
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: was Amsterdam.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Or Able or Able.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I did not know that. I could
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: have sworn it would have been pH.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I say, we take a break, Chuck, it's ten minutes
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: into the short stuff. Let's do it. If you want
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: to know luck, just listen to Suffus Stuffuse no.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Stories. We're going to zip through this last bit.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Okay. So NATO says this is this is pretty good,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: but I think we can improve on the Abel Baker thing.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: So they formed a committee, which means everything starts moving
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: at a snail's pace, and they argue about what to
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: change the letters C M and you an X two.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Apparently they finally got through those, but and just kept
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: hanging on. They couldn't decide on nectar versus November.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: That is so funny to get hung up on something
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're talking like a couple of years they're
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: talking about this. Finally, the NATO Military Standing Group says,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: we're just going to use this anyway. You guys go
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: figure it out. The reason everybody was waiting was because
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the International Civil Aviation Organization, which basically lays the communication
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: standards down for the entire civilian air traffic control universe. Right,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: they just I guess they were the ones who couldn't
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: decide on nectar versus November, so they didn't sign on.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: But NATO started using it before the ICAO did.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: That's right, and then finally in February of nineteen fifty six,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: I belief saying, starting in March, they're like, this is
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: going to be the one that everyone's going to use.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: We need it. I think the ITU, the International Telecommunications
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Union would started this whole mess. They came on a
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: few years after that, and basically everybody, finally civilian military alike,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: ended up agreeing on the same thing by switching out
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: those letters, and we ended up with those letters with
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Charlie Mike November is what went out uniform in X ray.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: So they have I don't know where you got this list,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: but they have the pronunciations next.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: To them with which one.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: There's a couple that I'm like, really they have for oh,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: for Oscar, they say to pronounce it Oscar and the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: victor Victa.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Well maybe they were from Boston, I guess.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: So that's really really funny. Yeah, So there you go.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: That's the NATO phonetic alphabet and Chuck's Landmarks cinema story.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I should title it that you got anything else nothing else?
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Well, that means everybody short stuff is out.
• 12:52
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• 12:55
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• 12:56
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• 13:00
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