NATO Phonetic Alphabet

"Bravo Oscar Tango cleared takeoff runway Zulu seven."
Have you heard people talking like that on a radio? They're spelling out letters using easily understood words so the listener doesn't mistake letters that sound similar like "b" and "p". It's called the NATO phonetic alphabet and it gives every letter in the English alphabet a code word. The code words are chosen to be a word whose opening sound represents the particular letter. For example, the word "bacon" is spelled out, "bravo - alpha - charlie - oscar - november." Also called the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet you might find it handy if you need to spell out a word to someone over a bad telephone connection.
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