Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: NATO Alphabet

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. This is the NATO alphabet. But where did it come from?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They say history is written by the victors, but you know what? They've left out a hell of a lot of juicy stuff. Ah, we all know who invented that, right? We'll think again. Truth is, Alexander Graham Bell stole the idea for the telephone, and then claimed it is his own. We're gonna uncover the forgotten pieces of history. You didn't know, you need it to know.

Listen to the backstory with me, Patty Steele, twice a week on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey, and welcome to this short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And Dave's not, but he would be if he weren't doing something else right now. He sends his love and kisses to all of you from Dave.

This short stuff. That's right. And we're talking about what's called the phonetic alphabet. And we're like, well, I don't know what that is. It's phonetic alphabet. You do know what it is if you've ever seen a war movie. Or if you're hooked on phonics. Or if you're hooked on Phoenix. Or if you're hooked on Phoenix, or you may not be using the actual

phonetic alphabet that they finally agreed on, which we'll get to, but you may be using your own version if you've ever been on a customer service call. I've done that. And you've had to say, well, my name is Chuck. Jack? No, Chuck. C is in Chuck. H is in Harley Davidson. He was in you. You pick with us. C is in, can you believe I'm having to spell Chuck out in K is in kangaroo poop. That's a good one, Chuck, I like that last one.

Yeah, I never know what to say when I go to do that. I feel like I get stumped, which is remarkable, that I can't think of a C word, which is crazy. So, yeah, with C word. I was just walking past that one Chuck. Why would you possibly want to assign words to letters when you're talking to somebody on a customer service hotline? Well, I have an answer. And by the way, thanks to popular mechanics and NATO.int in particular for this. You would want to do that because a lot of this stuff

started out after, well, it all started out after radio communication was born. That was an excellent point I hadn't considered. Yeah, when there were telegrams, the way that people communicated, it was very easy to see what someone meant, because it was spelled out for you. But once radio comms started, and especially in things like war, if you're trying to, let's say, report your position because you're being bombed, the person at any other end, they can't see you, they can't reach

your lips, they're hearing bombing going on, then people probably yelling and screaming and it's chaotic. And so you really want to get that right. So they started spelling this stuff out just to make sure they knew the correct message. Yeah. Makes total sense. Yeah. just to make sure they knew the correct message. Yeah, makes total sense. So one of the things that's so obvious that it could smack you on the forehead,

but you just don't think about that. It just did not need it before radio. And people who use the radio a lot and really, really need clear communication because the stuff that they're talking about can often be life and death. Those are the ones you'll most typically find using that phonetic or nato alphabet. Yeah. And there's also, I mean, the very foundation of ventriloquism is based on the idea

that there are sounds that sound like other sounds and that can get very confusing. And ventriloquism, you exploit that by saying those other sounds have less lip movement as a substitute. But if you're on a radio communication with some communicate, as I should say. Yeah. Then you don't want to get someone a TH confused with an F, you know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean, man. They can lead to disaster. There's been a long kind of weird history with this though.

As far as agreeing on it, the first one came about in the 1920s from the telecom industry, the International Telecommunications Union. And I say we read all these versions. They're great. I'd use geographical names, typically towns, sometimes states. There was one I had to look up for X its Xanthep. I think you should just read the alphabet do it. Okay. I want to hear Josh style. Amsterdam Baltimore, Casablanca, Denmark, Edison, New Jersey, Florida, Gallyopoly, Kavanaugh, whatever you inserted a vowel, that's what you do.

Whoever I was speaking to in 1920, would have known I meant G. Okay. Havana, Italian, they put a little extra spicy sauce on that one. Jerusalem, kilogram makes no sense. Liverpool, Madagascar, New York, Oslo, Paris, Quebec, Roma, Santiago, Tripoli, Upsula, Valencia, Washington. There's that Zam Thief again, Yokohama, and Zurich.

I'm just trying to picture you on the war communication. When you... Oh no, he said a galley uply, it's a no! It is a no letter for galley uply. Right. No, I can't think he meant Goliathly. No, he said a no letter for Galliopoli. Right. No, he said Galliopoli. Right.

They accidentally invade Galliopoli when they meant to go to Galliopoli. I don't know why all of a sudden you're on a communicate with Italy. I have always said Galliopoli too. Really? Yeah, I like it more. I'm going to continue saying it because I say it so infrequently. Why change something like that? Man, that extra vowel, I'm going to continue saying it because I say it so infrequently. Why, why change something like that? Man, that extra vowel, I'm going to start calling you Josiah.

Yeah, okay. Wait, that's the same as calling me Joshua. Oh, is it the same name basically? It's the same number of syllables. Oh, stop. Josiah, Joshua. Militarially speaking. So that was the telecoms industry. On the military side, they started using the Army Navy's phonetic alphabet, which they called the Abel Baker alphabetic. Alphabetic, alphabetic because those were the first two. And the Brits use this one as well, and I'll go through this one. Abel Baker, Charlie Dog, Easy Fox, George Howe. That's a tough one.

Item, Jig, King, Love, Mike, Nan, Obo, Peter, Queen, Roger, sugar, tear, is in T-A-R-E, Uncle, Victor, William, X-ray, Yoke, and Zebra, or Zebra, if you're a Brit. My favorite combination is Roger's sugar. Yeah, or easy dog. I had a guy in the end of the day, I just got to say this, and I'm even gonna name the theater.

Okay. The landmark Midtown Cinema. Oh, yes, good one. I went to'm even going to name the theater. Okay. The landmark Midtown cinema. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. I went to get popcorn at an 11 a.m. showing of the New Indiana Jones movie. Okay. And I said, is that stuff fresh? And they go, yeah, I popped it this morning. I know it, because I know that wasn't true probably.

They read popcorn. All theaters do. I said, okay, I'll take it, based solely on that. I go to eat the popcorn all theaters do. I said, okay, I'll take it based solely on that. I go to eat the popcorn in the theater. It is really stale. I was going to say like who cares. I was like, you know what, that was eight bucks. I'm going to go back up there and just give my money back.

Just very kindly. Very kindly went to do that. They had to call the manager. I said that it wasn't good and it's no big deal. I just want to see the movie and blah, blah, blah. And the guy that sold it to me with his back to me went, dog, it tastes fine and put some in his mouth. And to his little buddy started going, for real? Yeah. And I usually very non-convertational, but I went, did you just call me dog? And he looked at me and didn't say anything. I think I scared him a little bit.

Good. And I went, did you call me dog? And the manager just looked at me. And it gave her the kind of look of like, this is where this is your turn now. Yeah, you were like, you gave her a, you're not going to fire him. Look, I don't want to fire, but like say something. She didn't say anything.

She gave me my money. And on the way out, I did the very old man man thing which I didn't think I would ever do. I was just like, hey man, just so you know, forget I'm a customer, human to human, talking to someone like that just isn't a way to go about life. Take it or leave it. Wow. Man, did you drop your microphone? I did. Nice work. So you're doing great landmarks at them. It's a good theater. There's just that one problem employee. I know. All right, sorry, I had to get that off my chest and that's even like a good time to do

it. So we finished up with Zebra to wrap this up before we take a break. Ten years after that, the IATA, the International Air Transport Association, said, listen, everyone's complaining because it's too English-centric. So let's swap out a few of these words. And they said, great, now we can agree in November 1951 for civil aviation only. They swapped out what? They coca for Charlie, Echo for Easy, Fox Trot for Fox, Gold for George, and then, you know, other things. India is in there instead of item.

Delta for dog. Delta for dog. Delta for dog. Yeah. The guy could have said, Delta, it tastes fine. But they swapped out some stuff just to make it a little less sort of, I guess, American. Yeah, one thing that I was surprised and never knew was that alpha is not spelled ALPHA. It's ALFA.

Yeah. You know that? Well, in the other version, I think the first version was PhA, right? Or was it always FAA? I don't know, but I wonder if it's like a product placement from the Alpha Insurance Company. Like they sponsored that particular phonetic alphabet. Oh no, actually it was Alpha, because the only previous was Amsterdam.

Or Abel. Or Abel. Yeah. All right, I did not know that. I could have sworn it would have been PHA. I say we take a break, Chuck. it's 10 minutes into the short stuff. Let's do it. If you wanna know, then you're in luck.

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So they form a committee, which means everything starts moving at a snail's pace. Right. And they argue about what to change the letter CMNU in X2. Mm-hmm. Apparently they finally got through those, but Anne just kept hanging on. They couldn't decide on nectar versus November.

That is so funny to get hung up on something like that. Yeah, so we're talking like a couple of years they're talking about this. Finally, the NATO military standing group says, we're just going to use this anyway. You guys go figure it out. The reason everybody was waiting was because the international civil aviation organization, The reason everybody was waiting was because the International Civil Aviation Organization, which basically lays the communication standards down for the entire civilian air traffic control universe. They just, I guess they were the ones who couldn't decide on nectar versus November, so they

didn't sign on. But NATO started using it before the ICAO did. That's right. And then finally in February of 1956, I believe saying starting in March, they're like, this is going to be the one that everyone's going to use. We need it. I think the ITU, the International Telecommunications Union, started this whole mess. They came on a few years after that and basically everybody finally, civilian military-like ended up agreeing on the same thing by switching out those letters and we ended up with those letters. With Charlie, Mike, November is what went out, uniform and

X-ray. So they have, I don't know where you got this list, but they have the pronunciations next to them. With which one? There's a couple that I'm like, really? They have for O for Oscar. They say to pronounce it Oscar. And Victor.

Victor. Well, maybe they're from Boston. I guess so. That's really funny. Yeah. So there you go. That's the NATO phonetic alphabet and Chuck's landmark cinema story.

I should title it that. You got anything else? Nothing else. Well that means everybody's short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts of my heart radio, Is everybody short stuff is out? Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts to my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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