Techie Talk

When talking on the phone…

•Cannot hear certain words exactly

•Don’t know how to pronounce weird names

•The other person does not understand me

•Don’t know how to say all these @, -, /, * …

NATO phonetic alphabet

A as in AppleA for AppleA like Apple

C – A – N – O – O – D – L - E

C as in Charlie A as in Alfa N as in November

double-O as in Oscar L as in Lima E as in Echo

Your own phonetic alphabet

•Common (male) names (Charlie, Robert)

•Animals (cat, dog)

•Fruits (apple, orange)

•Greek alphabet (delta, epsilon)

The one I use

A as in Apple

B as in Boy

C as in Cat

D as in David

E as in Eagle

F as in Frank

G as in Gary

H as in Hotel

I as in Ice-cream

J as in Jam

K as in Kite

L as in Lion

M as in Moscow

N as in Nancy

O

P as in Pencil

Q as in Question

R as in Robert

S as in Sam

T as in Tiger

U as in Umbrella

V as in Viktor

W as in White

X as in X-ray

Y as in Yellow

Z as in Zebra

Can you spell that for me?

How do you spell your last name?

When YOU don’t understand:

When THEY don’t understand:

Should I spell that?

Let me spell this for you…

My last name is ZAYATS, that’s z-as-in-zebra, a-as-in-apple…

not: Do I need to spell that for you?

Double-checking:

Let me read that back to you to make sure I got it right.

Let me repeat that.

Is it spelled with N as in Nancy?

When asking to repeat:•Do ask!

•Be concise

•Be polite

•Retell the information

Pardon me?

Excuse me, how’s that?

Sorry, didn’t catch that. Can you

repeat please?

What?

I am so sorry, but the connection is

so bad that I can hardly hear every

other word you say. Can you please

repeat the last sentence?

Pranks & gotchas

Q as in CubaG as in Joy

E as in EyeK as in KnifeJ as in JalapenoP as in PneumoniaW as in Why

The Unknown- dash, hyphen

/ (forward) slash

\ backslash

_ underscore

@ at

* asterisk

& ampersand

# pound

, comma

. dot (period, full stop).

: colon

; semicolon

^ caret

! exclamation mark

? question mark

’ apostrophe

() round brackets

[] square brackets

{} curly brackets, braces (US)

  ⟨ ⟩ angle brackets, chevrons

<> inequality signs

(less-than & greater-than)