When spelling something over the phone, many will name a word to go alongside each letter. This ensures clarity of communication, and is especially important over poor-quality audio devices like walkie-talkies or radio comms.
People tend to use whichever word comes to mind eg. "D" as in "Dog".
Unfortunately, the English language isn't always pronounced the way it's spelled, resulting in misunderstandings, which the NATO phonetic alphabet set out to solve.
Each letter corresponds to a word that doesn't sound similar to any other word in the phonetic alphabet.
This way, when you spell something, there is no confusion on whether youre saying "Dog" or "Hog" or "Talk" or "Bog" or any number of alternate posibilities.
So the aim is clear: make each word distinct sounding.
However the alphabet piqued my interest, and I set out on a journey to explore each letter's namesake and what they mean. As such, this page is an informal collection of fun things and bits of information regarding the words behind each letter of the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Maybe this could be useful in learning the alphabet itself too.?