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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and

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Speaker 1: there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and Dave's not, but

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Speaker 1: he would be if he weren't doing something else right now.

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Speaker 1: He sends his love and kisses to all of you

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Speaker 1: from Dave this short stuff.

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Speaker 2: That's right. We're talking about what's called the phonetic alphabet,

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Speaker 2: and we're like, well, I don't know what that is.

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Speaker 1: It's a phonetic alphabet.

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Speaker 2: You do know what it is. If you've ever seen

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Speaker 2: a war movie, or if you're hooked on phonics, or

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Speaker 2: if you're hooked on phonics, or you know, you may

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Speaker 2: not be using the actual phonetic alphabet that they finally

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Speaker 2: agreed on, which we'll get to, but you may be

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Speaker 2: using your own version. If you've ever been on a

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Speaker 2: customer service call.

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Speaker 1: I've done that.

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Speaker 2: And you've had to, you know, say, well, my name

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Speaker 2: is Chuck Jack No Chuck see as in Chuck h

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Speaker 2: is in Harley Davidson in Ubiquitous, uh C is in

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Speaker 2: can you believe I'm having the spell? Chuck out and

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Speaker 2: k is in Kangaroo poop.

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Speaker 1: That's a good one, Chuck. I liked that last one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I never know what to say. When I go

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Speaker 2: to do that, I know, and I feel like I

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Speaker 2: get stumped, which is remarkable that like I can't think

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Speaker 2: of a SA word, which is crazy, especially with the

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Speaker 2: sea word.

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Speaker 1: We just walk on past that one, Chuck, Why would

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Speaker 1: you possibly want to assign words to letters when you're

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Speaker 1: talking to somebody on a customer service hotline?

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Speaker 2: Well, I have an answer. And by the way, thanks

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Speaker 2: to popular mechanics and NATO DOT I n T in

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Speaker 2: particular for this, you would want to do that because,

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Speaker 2: you know, a lot of this stuff started out after

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Speaker 2: well it all started out after radio communication was born.

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Speaker 1: When they were the excellent point I hadn't considered, you know.

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Speaker 2: When they were telegrams were the way that people communicated.

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Speaker 2: It was very easy to see what someone meant because

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Speaker 2: it was spelled out for you. But once radio coom started,

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Speaker 2: and especially in things like war, if you're trying to

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Speaker 2: say report your position because you're being bombed, the person

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Speaker 2: on the other end they can't see you, they can't

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Speaker 2: reach your lips. They're hearing bombing going on and people

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Speaker 2: probably yelling and screaming, and it's chaotic, and so you

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Speaker 2: really want to get that right. So they started spelling

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Speaker 2: this stuff out just to make sure they knew the

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Speaker 2: correct message.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, makes total sense. One of those things is so

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Speaker 1: obvious that it could smack you on the forehead, but

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Speaker 1: you just don't think about that. They just did not

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Speaker 1: need it before radio and people who use the radio

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Speaker 1: a lot and really really need clear communication because the

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Speaker 1: stuff that they're talking about can often be life and death.

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Speaker 1: Those are the ones you'll most typically find using that

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Speaker 1: phonetic or NATO alphabet.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's also I mean, the very foundation of

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Speaker 2: ventriloquism is based on the idea that there are sounds

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Speaker 2: that sound like other sounds and that can very confusing,

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Speaker 2: and ventriloquism you exploit that by saying those other sounds

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Speaker 2: have less lip movement as a substitute. But if you're

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Speaker 2: on a radio communication with some communica, is that what

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Speaker 2: you would say? Yeah, then you don't want to get

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Speaker 2: someone THH confused with an F you know what I mean?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you mean. Man, That can lead

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Speaker 1: to disaster.

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Speaker 2: There's been a long kind of weird history with this though. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: as far as agreeing on it. The first one came

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Speaker 2: about in the nineteen twenties, from the telecom industry, the

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Speaker 2: International Telecommunications Union, and I say, we read all these versions.

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Speaker 1: They're great. They use geographical names, typically town, sometimes states.

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Speaker 1: There was one I had to look up for X.

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Speaker 1: It's ZAMTHEP.

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Speaker 2: I think you should just read the alphabet. Do it?

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Speaker 1: Okay?

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Speaker 2: I want to hear it.

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Speaker 1: Josh Style, Amsterdam, Baltimore, Casablanca, Denmark, Edison, New Jersey, Florida, Galiopoli.

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Speaker 1: Whatever you entered, it a bell.

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Speaker 2: It's what you do.

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Speaker 1: Whoever I was speaking to in nineteen twenty would have

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Speaker 1: known I meant g okay Havana, Italia. They put a

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Speaker 1: little extra spicy sauce on that one.

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Speaker 2: Uh huh.

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Speaker 1: Jerusalem kilogram makes no sense, Liverpool, Madagascar, New York, Oslo, Paris, Quebec, Roma, Santiago, Tripoli, Uppsila, Valencia, Washington.

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Speaker 1: There's that zan thiep again, Yokohama and Zurich.

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Speaker 2: I'm just trying to picture you on the war communication.

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Speaker 2: When you no, he said, a Galiopoly is a no.

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Speaker 2: It is a no letter for Galiopoli, right, Galipoly No,

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Speaker 2: he said, a Galiopoly.

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Speaker 1: They accidentally in big Galiopoli when they meant to go

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Speaker 1: to Gallipoli.

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Speaker 2: I don't know why, all of a sudden you're on

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Speaker 2: a communicate with Italy.

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Speaker 1: I have always said galiopoly too. Really, Yeah, I like

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Speaker 1: it more. I'm gonna continue saying it because I say

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Speaker 1: it so infrequently. Why change something like that?

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Speaker 2: Man, that extra val. I'm gonna start calling you Josiah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Okaya, the same as calling me Joshua.

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Speaker 2: Oh is it the same name. Basically, it's the.

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Speaker 1: Same number of syllables. Oh, stop Josiah.

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Speaker 2: Joshua militarily speaking. So that was the telecoms industry. On

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Speaker 2: the military side, they started using the Army Navy's phonetic alphabet,

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Speaker 2: which they called the Abel Baker Alphabetic alphabetic alphabet because

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Speaker 2: those are the first two and the Brits use this

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Speaker 2: one as well. And I'll go through this one, Abel Baker,

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Speaker 2: Charlie dogg Easy Fox, George Howe. That's a tough one

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Speaker 2: item Jig King, Love, Mike nan Obo, Peter Queen, Roger Sugar,

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Speaker 2: tear Is and t A r E, Uncle Victor William

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Speaker 2: X Ray Yoke and Zebra or Zebra if you're a brit.

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Speaker 1: My favorite combination is Roger Sugar.

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Speaker 2: Yeah or easy Dog. I had a guy the end

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Speaker 2: of the day. I just got to say this, and

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Speaker 2: I'm even going to name the theater the Landmark Midtown Cinema.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a good one.

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Speaker 2: I went to get popcorn at an eleven minute AM

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Speaker 2: showing of the new Indiana Jones movie, and I said,

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Speaker 2: is that stuff fresh? And the guy went, yeah, I

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Speaker 2: popped it this morning. And I went because I know

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Speaker 2: that wasn't true. Probably they re use popcorn all theaters do.

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Speaker 2: I said, okay, I'll take it based solely on that.

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Speaker 2: I go to eat the popcorn in the theater. It

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Speaker 2: is really stale. I was gonna say, like, who cares,

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Speaker 2: but I was like, you know what, that was eight bucks.

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna go back up there and just get my

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Speaker 2: money back, just very kindly. I very kindly went to

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Speaker 2: do that. They had to call the manager. I said

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Speaker 2: that it wasn't good and it's no big deal. I

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Speaker 2: just want to see the movie and blah blah blah.

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Speaker 2: And the guy that sold it to me with his

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Speaker 2: back to me, went dog, it tastes fine, and puts

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Speaker 2: them in his mouth and to his little buddy start going.

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Speaker 1: For real.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I usually very non confrontational, but I went,

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Speaker 2: did you just call me dog? And he looked at

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Speaker 2: me and didn't say anything. I think I scared him

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Speaker 2: a little bit o good, and I went did you

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Speaker 2: call me dog? And the manager just looked at me,

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Speaker 2: and I gave her the kind of look of like

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Speaker 2: this is where this is your turn?

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Speaker 1: Now? Yeah you're you were like, you gave her You're

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Speaker 1: not going to fire him.

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Speaker 2: Look, I don't want to fire, but like say something.

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Speaker 2: She didn't say anything. She gave me my money, and

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Speaker 2: on the way out, I did the very old man thing,

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Speaker 2: which I didn't think I would ever do. I was

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Speaker 2: just like, hey, man, just so you know, forget I'm

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Speaker 2: a customer, human to human. Talking to someone like that

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Speaker 2: just isn't a way to go about life. Take it

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Speaker 2: or leave it.

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Speaker 1: Wow, man, did you drop your microphone? I did nice work.

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Speaker 2: So you're doing great Landmark Cinemas.

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Speaker 1: It's a good theater. There's just one problem, employee.

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Speaker 2: I know, all right. Sorry. I had to get that

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Speaker 2: off my chest, and that seemed like a good time

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Speaker 2: to do it. So we finished up with Zebra to

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Speaker 2: wrap this up before we took a break. Ten years

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Speaker 2: after that, the IATA, the International Air Transport Association said, listen,

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Speaker 2: everyone's complaining because this is to English English centric. So

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Speaker 2: let's swap out a few of these words. And they said, great,

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Speaker 2: and now we can agree. In November nineteen fifty one

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Speaker 2: for civil aviation only, Yeah, they swapped out what they

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Speaker 2: coca for Charlie, Echo for Easy, Foxtrot for Fox, gold

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Speaker 2: for George, and then you know other things. India's in there.

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Speaker 2: Instead of item.

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Speaker 1: Delta, they which one delta for dog.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The guy could have said delta. It tastes fine,

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Speaker 2: but they swapped out some stuff just to make it

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Speaker 2: a little less sort of I guess American.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing that I was surprised and never knew

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Speaker 1: is that Alpha is not spelled Alpha. It's al Fa.

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Speaker 1: Did you know that?

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Speaker 2: Well? In the in the other version, I think the

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Speaker 2: first version was Pha, right or was it always FA?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but I wonder if it's like product

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Speaker 1: placement from the Alpha Insurance company, like they sponsored that

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Speaker 1: particular phonetic alphabet.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, actually it was Alpha because the only previous

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Speaker 2: was Amsterdam.

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Speaker 1: Or Able or Able.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I did not know that. I could

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Speaker 2: have sworn it would have been pH.

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Speaker 1: I say, we take a break, Chuck, it's ten minutes

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Speaker 1: into the short stuff. Let's do it. If you want

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Speaker 1: to know luck, just listen to Suffus Stuffuse no.

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Speaker 2: Stories. We're going to zip through this last bit.

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Speaker 1: Okay. So NATO says this is this is pretty good,

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Speaker 1: but I think we can improve on the Abel Baker thing.

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Speaker 1: So they formed a committee, which means everything starts moving

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Speaker 1: at a snail's pace, and they argue about what to

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Speaker 1: change the letters C M and you an X two.

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Speaker 1: Apparently they finally got through those, but and just kept

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Speaker 1: hanging on. They couldn't decide on nectar versus November.

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Speaker 2: That is so funny to get hung up on something

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Speaker 2: like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're talking like a couple of years they're

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Speaker 1: talking about this. Finally, the NATO Military Standing Group says,

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Speaker 1: we're just going to use this anyway. You guys go

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Speaker 1: figure it out. The reason everybody was waiting was because

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Speaker 1: the International Civil Aviation Organization, which basically lays the communication

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Speaker 1: standards down for the entire civilian air traffic control universe. Right,

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Speaker 1: they just I guess they were the ones who couldn't

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Speaker 1: decide on nectar versus November, so they didn't sign on.

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Speaker 1: But NATO started using it before the ICAO did.

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Speaker 2: That's right, and then finally in February of nineteen fifty six,

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Speaker 2: I belief saying, starting in March, they're like, this is

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Speaker 2: going to be the one that everyone's going to use.

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Speaker 2: We need it. I think the ITU, the International Telecommunications

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Speaker 2: Union would started this whole mess. They came on a

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Speaker 2: few years after that, and basically everybody, finally civilian military alike,

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Speaker 2: ended up agreeing on the same thing by switching out

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Speaker 2: those letters, and we ended up with those letters with

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Speaker 2: Charlie Mike November is what went out uniform in X ray.

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Speaker 1: So they have I don't know where you got this list,

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Speaker 1: but they have the pronunciations next.

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Speaker 2: To them with which one.

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Speaker 1: There's a couple that I'm like, really they have for oh,

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Speaker 1: for Oscar, they say to pronounce it Oscar and the

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Speaker 1: victor Victa.

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Speaker 2: Well maybe they were from Boston, I guess.

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Speaker 1: So that's really really funny. Yeah, So there you go.

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Speaker 1: That's the NATO phonetic alphabet and Chuck's Landmarks cinema story.

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Speaker 2: I should title it that you got anything else nothing else?

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Speaker 1: Well, that means everybody short stuff is out.

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Speaker 2: Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

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Speaker 1: The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.