Y as in Europe

Quote of the blog-

My coworkers on the phone:

Doug: Mario, you sound distant.
Mario: Emotionally?
Doug: Uh, no. You sound far away from your phone.

********

I am on the phone a lot at work. When I take people’s names I like to use a phonetic alphabet to confirm the spelling: c as in cat, b as in boy, n as in nancy, etc.

Recently, my friend and I discussed whether people use F as in Frank more than F as in Foxtrot or some other F word (not that one!). My experience said Frank was the most popular term. He disagreed so we decided to do an experiment.

We performed a rigorous and extensive triple-blind experiment with a large study population and an expected p-value of less than 0.05. Ok, not really. I just kept track of the “F as in…” for the day and he polled people at a hamburger joint on his lunch break.

Frank won out, but just barely. I discovered that while the military phonetic alphabet may use a set list of words (including F as in Foxtrot) just about anything will do for your average civilian. People used F as in…Frank, Foxtrot, Frog, Flower, Freedom, and I even got one F as in Frankenstein. Classic.

One of the more interesting phonetic telephone convos I've had was with a woman who spelled her name as:

v as in victor
a as in apple
y as in europe
y as in europe
e as in eagle
r as in ralph

Y as in Europe? I was a little thrown and wanted to double-check the spelling-

“Ok, that’s:

v as in victor
a as in apple
y as in yellow
y as in yellow
e as in eagle
r as in ralph

Without hesitating she said, “Correct.”

I overheard my friend venting some serious frustrations at the office after he had been on the phone for almost an hour with three different customer service reps. He had to repeat his information over and over again. Finally, I heard him say, “No. The booking code is I as in Incompetent, F as in Frustrating, M as in Moron…”

That made me think: What if I started using a personalized version of a phonetic alphabet? What about a silent spelling alphabet? “Yes, that’s g as in gnat, a as in astigmatism, k as in knee, and p as in psychology.

Or, what if people used an alphabet specific to their line of work? Since I work with study abroad kids so I could say something like u as in unaccompanied minor, e as in England, p as in passport, but It wouldn’t be as exciting as someone in the mafia: l as in launder, t as in trunk, c as in cement shoes, h as in horse head in your bed …

You could potentially reveal a lot about yourself with a personalized spelling alphabet so, for now, I think I’ll stick with the basic phonetic alphabet. Thanks for reading; I’m off to research vacation spots in Yurope.