Recently Michael taught me the phonetic alphabet used by the Marines. (I suppose it's also used by the airline industry, the rest of the military, and anyone else who has to communicate over airborne soundwaves.) It begins Alpha, Bravo, Charlie...and has interesting words like Foxtrot and Tango in it. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) I like it very much. In the Marine Corps, various groups (I still haven't sorted out all the designations, so I don't know the hierarchy governing what constitutes a battalion, troop, or division) are assigned different letters for purposes of distinction, and they are therefore nicknamed their corresponding phonetic letter: Easy Company, Delta Company, etc.
Now I find this next point very interesting. J is Juliet, and R is Romeo. However, when assigning letters to groups of soldiers, J is inevitably passed over, like the thirteenth floor on every elevator. Fascinating, eh? I asked Michael why this would be. Duh! No guy's gonna want to belong to Juliet Company!!! Straight from India to Kilo it goes.
I suppose this does prevent various difficulties that might arise if, say, Romeo Company and Juliet Company got sent off to perform maneuvers together:
'Romeo! Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?'
'Idiot! We're supposed to be sneaking up on them!'
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I remember reading a logic puzzle once in which the main character, who had a very complicated name, was always spelling it out for people with obscure words like 'R as in rhomboid, e as in enigma, p as in pneumonia...'
Here, then, is the alphabet in full:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike,
November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform,
Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.
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