My personal experience says that the most commonly understood phonetic alphabet ... | Hacker News

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yencabulator 29 days ago | parent | context | favorite | on: Understanding and avoiding visually ambiguous char...

My personal experience says that the most commonly understood phonetic alphabet in the US among laypeople is the 1946 ARRL alphabet using American first and last names, for example A as in Adam, N as in Nancy. NATO phonetic alphabet confuses almost everyone I've tried it on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_alphabet

devilbunny 29 days ago [–]

Everyone I've run into in the hospitality industry gets NATO phonetic. Hotels and airlines, in my experience, but I assume it generalizes.

My wife thought it was crazy the first time she heard me use it. Then she realized that they all understand it too.

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