Pressing question.

[Hover Fly]

So I was on aTGV coming across France for my aunt's funeral, when a thought came into my head, when armed forces or the police etc. are using the phonetic alphabet and they need a "W", is it the Irish/USA spelling "whiskey" or the Scottish/Canadian/Japanese "whisky" that they use?

And another thing, why don't we have a shorter word for the letter "W"? In fact when I need to say "W" I'm going to use the word "whiskey", it's one syllable shorter.

 

[Noodley]

Whisky

 

[Keith Oates]

Suprising what you think about when in a train!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[domtyler]

A freakish question if you ask me. The whole point of a phonetic alphabet is that it helps you to relate the spelling of words over an audio only medium, walkie-talkie, telephone etc. The spelling of the phonemes is irrelevant in this context.

 

[laurence]

Suprising what you think about when in a train!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i usually fall asleep... which reminds me *rips up application form to be a train driver*

 

[SamNichols]

I believe that strictly speaking it's: "whiskey", as it's more common internationally (i.e. the Americans use it, and it's NATO approved), but I don't think that it matters all that much.

As for the second point, no idea. I still don't understand why we have the k and the c, when they're the same pretty much all the time.

 

[longers]

Cello.

 

[longers]

Celibate. Cellophane.

 

[Crackle]

i usually fall asleep... which reminds me *rips up application form to be a train driver*

It's OK they've got warning buzzers in the cabs to wake you up when you go over important bits.

 

[longers]

Celery, censure, central, cephalopod.

 

[laurence]

keeble bollege oxford

 

[SamNichols]

Ahhh but longers, they're 's' sounds, the rest are K sounds. The ones you should bring up are 'ch' which isn't covered by another letter'.
Strictly speaking I mean to get rid of the K rather than the C though, it always stikes me as pointless, and 25 is a much rounder number.

 

[laurence]

but you get more points in scrabble for a k

 

[longers]

Knackers.

 

[longers]

Kibble.