Learning the NATO alphabet

“Lima, Oscar, November, Delta, Oscar, November. You know, the capital of England and the UK,” said my flatmate at the time from the next room. He was on the phone with a bank, a phone company, Parliament, it doesn’t matter. You have to know the alphabet.

Alphabets are something you never think about, unless of course you are illiterate or are three years old. When I moved to the UK I had to learn a new alphabet, a spoken one, that you only ever heard in films with lots of explosions and camouflage. That’s right, the NATO alphabet.

In at least two flats I lived in in London, I had a printout of the NATO alphabet taped to the wall in front of the excuse for a desk in my little hovel. This is because in the UK, at least at the time, you had to know it, and it was assumed you knew it. I thought this was cool because it’s like secret code that you would only otherwise learn as someone from the US when you were doing missions or hanging out with SEAL teams. But if you get on the phone in the UK and if you need to fix anything, you’re calling somewhere where they talk a lot different than you do. And this alphabet is the only way to get by. But that isn’t the best bit, which is the pub challenge which is when you challenge other fellow drinkers to spell things.