Transcript of AEE 2711: Should You Say “B as in Bravo” or “B as in Boy?”

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2711. Should you say "B as in Bravo" or "B as in Boy"? Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS quiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.

Hello, Lindsay. How are you today?

Good, Aubrey. How are you doing? How's everything going?

Excellent.

Yeah, going great. I have an interesting question for you.

Yeah. Are there any letters that you often have to clarify when calling customer service, for example? Maybe something in your name.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes let's see, in my name, yeah. I mean, sometimes people will ask me to kind of spell out, to give examples of the letters, or to slow down. But I guess my name's not too problematic in terms of.

Interesting.

But I was wondering if the M would be, if anyone ever hears N or M.

Because I have an M and an N, so I have to really enunciate that. But yeah, what about you, Aubrey? Do you have anything tricky?

Yeah. Well, my maiden name was Sievers, spelled S-I-E-V-E-R-S. And every time when I would have to give my name, it's not clear really how it's spelled. Someone might spell it S-E-A, and then when I would say the V, customer service or anyone on the phone would be like, "Wait, B or D or V?" So then they would often say a word, or I would say a word too. And then this is funny because we got a great question about this, about like, what word do you use to clarify the letter?

Victorious.

That's hilarious.

I wonder if it's like a litmus test for what's on your mind, how confident you're feeling. You say Victorious, right?

He was trying to project future success. V as in Victorious. I can only imagine the customer service agent being like, "Okay."

Okay.

That works, I guess. I know what you're saying.

Wow. So today we have another really unique topic that you're not going to find anywhere else, guys. So this is based on a question from Maoro, and I think Maoro is one of our longtime listeners, so huge thank you to Maoro for listening to the show. Shall I go ahead and read the question, Aubrey?

Yeah, let's do it.

So Maoro says, "I have a question for you. I wonder if you guys use the NATO phonetic alphabet when you have to spell something complex for someone, especially over the phone." Yes. And what is the NATO phonetic alphabet, Aubrey?

Yeah, this is such a great question. So the NATO alphabet assigns a distinct, widely understood code word to each letter from A to Z. It's used globally in aviation, military, marine, radio operations. So you've probably heard Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot. It goes through the whole alphabet. Some of them we're less familiar with, especially if it doesn't have a letter that sounds the same, so we don't hear it very often.

Right.

But this really got me thinking because my initial instinct was, no, we hear that military professionals use that, but in daily conversations, no one does. But I was like, I'm going to just confirm. So I texted a bunch of people. I sort of did some informal surveying, and I was surprised. Not everyone does what I do. What do you do, Lindsay? Do you use the NATO alphabet?

No, I make up my own. I just kind of try to think of a word in the moment.

Same. Or there's sort of specific go-tos.

Yeah. I didn't really think about the fact that I could just memorize the NATO phonetic alphabet and just have a go-to word. So sometimes I'll sit there thinking, trying to think of another word. It'll take up a lot of time on customer support calls. It's not good.

It's so interesting. And I actually found out that for some people, it's their pet peeve when someone does that, when someone's doing what I do and you do, where we're like looking around at the closest noun that starts with that letter maybe, or saying A, B.

It does exactly save time, right?

Right. Or if they're thinking it should always be that maybe a military or someone who worked in a call center who feels like everyone should use the NATO phonetic alphabet, it might be their pet peeve when people don't.

Right, because maybe the training came in with callers using that.

Yes.

But before we go into deeper into this unique topic today, Aubrey, do we have a poll to announce? We love to share our insights about our listeners, about you all, through our polls. What did we learn?

Yes, exactly. And we have a recent poll that a lot of people responded to, and I was actually really excited to hear the results for this. It was episode 2666. After this amazing episode, you owe us one. And in it, we talked about this expression about calling the elevator, sending the elevator back down. So the poll was, do you send the elevator back down when you reach your floor? And this was really interesting, the results. What were the results, Lindsay?

Okay. The results were, yes, we had 37.9% and no, 62.1%. Interesting.

So most people, I'm with the no's, though I feel like I should. Now that I think about it, I'm like, that actually really makes sense to just hit the button and send it back down. But I've always been among the no's. I'm impressed there are this many yes's.

That's very impressive.

There's people who are, it's possible that it's cultural. Like in their culture, they might be thinking, how could you not?

Right. I know I have to admit, I'm a no too. I don't think about that. Usually, I get off the elevator and think, okay, where do I go now? Like, it's the next step. I'm never four steps ahead. I'm always at the next step. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And this may be related to maybe selfishness within American culture. This is not something we even talk about. I've asked a few people since, Americans, and they're like, never even thought about it.

Nope. Yeah, same here. I mean, yeah, that was why I was, living in Japan was such an eye-opener for me. I mean, the level have you been to Japan, Aubrey?

I haven't. I'd love to go.

The level of politeness and respect and just thinking about all other citizens around us is so different from American culture. It's fascinating.

It's so admirable.

To the point where.

To us as Americans, I feel like we notice it even more.

Oh my gosh. We notice it more because I remember coming back on a plane, I flew American Airlines back from my year and a half in Tokyo, and I was shocked how rude the airline stewardess seemed to be to me. But she wasn't rude. She was just American compared to what I was used to.

You're used to it anymore.

Like, wow. Yeah, it's fascinating. So anyways, coming back. So guys, be sure to participate in our polls. We want to know more about what our audience believes and thinks and how we live as a community.

Yes, absolutely. You can find those polls on Spotify. So fill them out, check them out. We read them. We're really interested in everyone's thoughts. So yes, come back to Spotify. We'll have one today for you to answer. And yeah, and let's dive into this. This is interesting.

Okay. So where do we start here? Let's come back into it. So we understand that a lot of people are not using the NATO alphabet, right?

Right. I don't.

Most of you don't.

The average citizen doesn't, right? But it is used by military personnel. We definitely hear it in movies, TV shows. If it's air traffic control, something like that, this is what they're going to use. But more just like average citizens than I expected do know and use this NATO alphabet. Like you were saying, it is part of training if they're working at a call center, or even if they're not military, if they work for air traffic control, this is what they would use. And then they would go through their lives using them.

And imagine the amount of time, you know, if you add it all up over the lifetime of these people that have worked in the military during their personal customer service calls, how much time they save by not having to think of a word.

It's so true. Maybe we need to learn it. And on that note, I thought it would be fun to have a little quiz, Lindsay. There are a few that I did not know. I was surprised by this code in the NATO phonetic alphabet. So I'm going to ask you a few of these and see if you know them or can guess them. So what is the code word for the letter K? Any idea?

I don't know. But the first word that comes to mind is kaleidoscope. But that's a really long word.

That would be really funny.

These are wild guesses.

These are military professional K as in kaleidoscope. It's kilo. And once you hear it, you're like, okay, I feel like I've heard that on a film, right? Soldier or someone saying, kilo, Bravo, Foxtrot.

Right, right. Oh my gosh. And to what would N be?

I am surprised, me. Do you have a guess?

No idea, Aubrey. No clue. What would it be? What is it?

November. It was November.

Oh, that's so random.

It was looking for a pattern.

And there's no pattern.

And I would think I'd hear that more because M and N sound so alike that I would think we'd use this one more.

November.

And then R. Do you have a guess for R?

Let's say rare. I don't know.

Good guess. It was Romeo.

Romeo.

Is the one for R. Interesting.

Yeah, I like that. So lots of vowel sounds in those words, at least in the word Romeo.

And really, the goal is to have it be a word that doesn't sound like any other word, so then there's no confusion. Like you know the letter when you hear that word, right?

Perfect. Yes, love it.

But what's interesting is most civilians, most of the rest of us, do what Lindsay was saying. We will either just grab the first word we think of that starts with that letter, and then we'll say as in, right? We'll say like S as in Sam or F as in Frank. So what we've done, I've pulled the groups of letters that sound the same so that we have to often do this. And we're going to share what at least American English speakers would most often use. But then for all the people I surveyed, I had them share some of the outliers, the ones that they use often that were not among these.

I love it. And then sometimes I feel like, honestly, I come up with something new every time. I do feel like I find myself using S as in Sam because Sam is such a common name. It just feels kind of modern, but also kind of old-fashioned at the same time. It's classic, right?

But for some of them, I agree, we'll come up with the first word we think of.

So wasting time here in our lives. All right. So most common, again, number one for S and F, what do we use? Tell us again.

So S as in Sam. And that's one of those where everyone I asked, that's what they use. Nobody had like a random other word that starts with S. So maybe because like S is not as or it just feels right to say S as in Sam.

Feels right.

I'm sure there are people out there who will throw out another word that starts with S.

Stilettos.

Most of us. S as in Sam.

All right. F as in Frank, right? So S and F are commonly, they're hard to hear, right?

Yeah, they sound hard to hear. So you often, if there's an S or an F in your name and you're on the phone especially, you might need to say, you know, this S as in Sam. And also, a couple of people said they say Fox, F as in Fox.

Okay. Okay. And then M and N, again, in my last name, I have both of these letters. People say M as in Mary and N as in Nancy. But you know what strikes me is that all these names so far, Sam, Sam could be modern, but Frank, Mary, Nancy, these are all older names. Like these are baby boomer names in a way. Don't you think?

Yeah. Well, and it makes sense because these have been being used for a long time. Like these are probably the same words that my grandparents use. And that's often the first word that comes to mind because that's what we've heard our grandparents say maybe if they had to spell a word and clarify what the letter was.

Yeah, exactly. So the question then becomes, is there going to be a point where when we're older, we're using millennial names? We're not using, you know.

I wonder.

Are these going to get locked in?

Probably.

Who knows, right?

And I asked my daughters too, you know, who are, they're younger, they're in their teens, but these are the same words. They either will do what we were saying where they'll just look and find the first thing that they see. So they're saying P as in pillow, N as in necklace. Or they'll say a lot of these too because they've heard these in movies or they've heard these. They sound familiar.

Yeah. So we'll have to check in again in 20 years and see what we're.

I'd be curious.

If we're episode 10,000, we'll see. We'll let you know what we're using. All right. So next one is B, D, P, and T. Is it hard to understand the difference between all of these letters or are there pairs here?

Yes, these four, on the phone especially, all sound the same. So if you have any of these letters, you might end up having someone say, wait, B or P? And they might say, for example, B as in boy is the most common.

That's common.

But someone told me they say B as in banana. That works too.

Basic words here, right? D as in dog. Dog is a very basic word. Sometimes it's the child's first word in English. Yep. And then P as in Peter. People might, again, another boomer name, right? This is an older name. T as in Tom. Also kind of a Gen X boomer name. Yeah, interesting. Interesting.

Interesting. But again, a lot of us will just kind of glance around and say the first thing or just think of the first thing we say. So these aren't certainly not what everyone says, but these are the most common from looking online and then also texting a bunch of people. I'm like, what word do you use?

Yeah.

Interesting.

So you guys can choose at the end of today's episode. Do you want to take these? These are easy ones. Do you want to take the NATO alphabet or do you want to come up with your own and be creative each time you call customer support?

Exactly, right? I'm actually really curious. I'd love to talk to some people in customer support if they're like, this is a sort of maybe they're talking with each other like, isn't it annoying when someone takes forever to think of a word to clarify?

It's so ridiculous. And then we have what, Aubrey? What are the next?

Yeah, the next set of letters are A, H, J, and K, which can all sound the same. So most common is A as in apple. But a couple of people said they say A as in alligator. That's a fun one.

H as in hotel or as in Harry or as in Henry. Again, kind of older names. So the name Harry is coming back in style now, I think. And Henry too.

Yes, that's true. And a lot of people responded that they'll almost always use a name because they think it's easier to tell what word they're saying and they know it won't sound like anything else. So that's interesting that a lot of people will say, if they have to clarify what letter they're saying, they'll say the letter as in and then pick a very common name.

Interesting. And then people might say J as in John, K as in Kate, or K as in kangaroo, K as in kite, the thing we fly in the air, right?

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, Aubrey, we're back for a couple of more pairs here. What's the next pair that can be confusing?

Yes. Next is I and Y, which sound a lot alike. I as in ice was the most common, but I actually say I as in igloo. And a couple other people said they say that as well.

Interesting. And then Y as in yellow, right? People say the color yellow. The last pair is C and Z. Yeah, if you hear yourself saying those, they do sound similar, those two sounds.

Especially when you're spelling something, you usually say it really quickly, right? You're like C-H-A-R, and then it's like, wait, C or Z?

Yeah. So we say C as in cat. Again, very simple words here, right?

Yes. And Z as in zebra. And yeah, so these are just from my kind of casual polling. This is so interesting. I want to be able to talk to everyone and find out like what words do you use? Are you the same as us where you just cast out for the first word you think of?

Yeah. So I can't wait to let our listeners know about our poll question that's coming up soon, guys. But first, let's get into a signature role play. So let's have a customer service call, shall we, Aubrey?

Yeah. You call a company here about your account, and I am the customer service representative that answers.

All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. So.

Ring, ring, right?

Yes.

Can you tell me your username?

Sure. It's FA482.

Okay. Let me pull that up. Did you say SA482?

No, no, no. F as in Frank.

Okay. Thanks. Got it. I found your account. Let me just verify your email address.

It's bdsanders@gmail.com. B as in boy, D as in dog.

Perfect. I have your account pulled up now.

Nice. Wow. That was a lot faster and more efficient than normally. This usually doesn't go that well, right?

Takes you longer to think.

B as in butter.

Let me think.

Donkey.

You put an F for dinner last night, you know.

Right. Oh gosh.

D as in donuts.

Right.

What food am I craving? Yeah. So let's go through it. So you said, okay, let me pull that up. Did you say SA482? And I said.

And then you said, no, F as in Frank. So this is where some people will just say, no, F, and they're trying to say it more clearly. This is definitely, I think, the polite thing to do and faster to say F as in and then a word that definitely starts with that letter.

Well, and the safer thing to do too, right? Because what will happen?

Because they'll mishear you.

Yeah, mishear you. And then they could send an email to the wrong account, and then you have to wait on hold again for who knows how long, right?

Exactly. This is sometimes high stakes, right?

High stakes.

I was on hold with my daughter for an hour with her college to get something done. And then because I think it was something like that, they had got the wrong email address or something, we ended up having to call again.

Oh my gosh.

So yeah, it's definitely to your benefit to be clear.

Oh, it's so true. And especially now, I mean, I was on the phone like last week with the state of Colorado, and it's like it takes a long time on hold because states are short of staff, right? So the stakes are very high now in terms of your time. You will want to do this, guys. Okay. What's the next piece?

So then you gave your email address. You said it's bdsanders@gmail.com. And this is interesting because when you have a name or an email address where you know some of the letters could be confused, you're clearly ready without even being asked to say right after B as in boy, D as in dog. Some people might even say that at the beginning. They might say it's B as in boy, D as in dog, sanders@gmail.com.

That's actually a good point, Aubrey. This could be a recommended strategy. You just start by giving them the letters, whatever letters you want, but don't even spell out the email address. Just start to spell it out with them.

Say it right away.

Yeah. That's what I started doing with my maiden name, Sievers, because always, almost always, they weren't sure if it was a V or a B or a D. So I would say S-I-E, V as in vacuum, E-R-S.

I love that.

So smart. So smart. All right, Aubrey, what is our poll for our listeners today? They can probably guess. I know. We're curious. Do you use the NATO phonetic alphabet? So we want to know. My assumption is if not, you either have these kind of go-to words that are common or you might be like Lindsay and I and cast about for the first thing you think of.

Oh my gosh. So funny. So let us know. That's the poll. It's in today's, it'll be live right now as this episode comes out. So go on over, make sure you're listening in Spotify to answer the poll and just select yes or no. And we will announce the results on the show later. All right.

Yes. Awesome. Dying for those results. So definitely go fill it out. And we also want to make sure that you didn't miss a recent episode. 2710 was, should you tell someone they're aging like a fine wine? So definitely go check that one out for vocabulary, the polite way to talk about getting older.

Yes. Love it. So for a takeaway today, customer service is also connection. You have a goal, of course, and the first goal should be kindness, right? Let's connect. Let's be kind because being a customer service agent cannot be easy, right? And this is a way we can make sure we don't get frustrated. Maybe we want to go and spell things out from the beginning, right? Give these words so we don't have mistakes.

Absolutely. Save yourself time and a headache. Make sure you get it clear in the first place. But I love that, Lindsay, too, to lead with kindness. I have been a customer service representative, and it is a frustrating job. Sometimes people are grumpy and unkind, and it makes such a difference when someone's trying to be kind and thoughtful.

It's so true. And before we get on the phone, we can choose how we want to be in that call, right?

Even if we've been waiting on hold for an hour, we can still be kind. It's not their fault.

Even so, it's not their fault, for sure. All right, good stuff, guys. Hit the follow button if you love All Ears English, and we'll see you soon, Aubrey. Have a good day.

Awesome. See you next time.

Okay.