Pressing question.

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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

Guest
Whisky
 

domtyler

Über Member
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.
 

SamNichols

New Member
Location
Colne, Lancs
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.
 
laurence said:
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.
 

SamNichols

New Member
Location
Colne, Lancs
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.
 
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