T as in Tango...

Kilo Romeo India Sierra Tango India November

This is how you spell my name in the NATO/ ICAO phonetic alphabet.  

Americans know some of these are military, air traffic control or police codes thanks to the movie industry, but the Brits have cleverly adopted these abbreviations into every day life. Ask one, and they'll probably be able to tell you most of them.

Ordering take-away Chinese food? Giving your license plate number over the phone? Calling an airline? Spell it with the phonetic alphabet.

My American friend pointed this out to me and said that when her English husband witnessed her order food on the phone one time, he was bewildered and puzzled to hear her fumble to come up with words on the fly.

It just makes sense! With the prevalence of outsourcing help desks, customer service lines etc... its has become even harder to communicate without having to spell everything. With the phonetic alphabet you don't have to worry that word you've just come up with will be misunderstood. Not much rhymes with "Sierra" and so that "S" can't be mistaken. Since it was brought to my attention I've noticed that my company's help desk people in India have been trained to spell with this same alphabet too...

If you've ever had to give the name of your street to the customer service line for your cable company, you know the process:

"M?"

"No, 'N' as in ummm...... "Nun."

"Mum?"

Sigh.

When I was moving to the UK, I had set up movers to come help move me out of my condo. When I called back to check on some things they had no record of my appointment. After much back and forth and time wasted we figured out that the reason the lady couldn't find my appointment is because the person who took my call the first time put my last name down as "Dunker". Serves me right for not taking the time to spell it out as I usually do!

Do yourself a favor, memorize the chart and next time you're talking to a help desk in Bangalore, you might just save some major frustration.