Talk:LAPD phonetic alphabet

Removed blatantly false statements

There were a few sentences stating that the use of long vowel sounds at the start of the phonetic for that vowel is rare, particularly the sentence that claimed "Ocean" was the only such word in the LAPD phonetic alphabet.

"Ida" and "Union" both start with their respective long vowel sounds.

If you change this back you are, for lack of a better way of putting it, a moron. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.142.52.90 (talk) 11:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate linking?

I removed the Wikipedia links for the words used to represent each letter of the alphabet because the meanings of the words are irrelevant in this case. Also, most of those links just went to disambiguation pages. At most the words should be linked to the Wiktionary entries.Benanhalt 07:07, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this page at all now. dale101usa

Common source with NYPD alphabet?

This has many of the same names as the NYPD alphabet (follows). Is there a common source? --ChrisRuvolo (t) 18:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

adam, boy, charlie, david, edward, frank, george, harry, ida, john, king, lincoln, mary, nora, ocean, peter, queen, robert, sam, tom, union, victor, william, x-ray, young, zebra

Actually, there is a minor boo-boo with this article:nowhere outside California are the letters(terms) "Boy" and "Young" used;mainly in the southeastern US(especially in Miami-based police dramas, like "CSI: Miami" and "Miami Vice"), they're strictly using the US Armed Forces terminology for its lettering, like "Baker" instead of "Boy"...not even the NYPD uses "Boy" or "Young"!...Baldwin91006 (talk) 17:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Wrong. I became a police officer in 1970 and the entire APCO alphabet, including "boy" and "young," was in widespread if not universal use throughout the state of Ohio. The department I work for now has many members who still use it. However, the "standard" use of signal codes and phonetic alphabets has given way over the years to "plain talk".--Reedmalloy (talk) 17:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on vowel quality

Referring to the following passage in the article:

The use of the word "Ocean" seems to be advantageous in the radio communication of the letter "O" because it begins with the long, clear vowel "O". The phonetic words "Ida" and "Union" feature this same advantage. However, phonetic alphabets seem to rarely use initial long vowels. With the exception of "Uniform", none of the initial vowels in the NATO alphabet are like this. In an earlier U.S. military alphabet, "A" was indicated by "Able", which does start with a long "A", but has since been changed to Alpha.

I see no source for these claims, and I also consider them dubious. Long vowels in English are diphthongized; I do not see how this makes them easier to understand than short vowels. The passage also references "clear" vowels, without explaining in any way the difference between a "clear" and an "unclear" vowel. It seems to me that this passage lacks scientific merit, but rather than tag it dubious, I put a citation needed tag on it.Stian (talk) 13:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The thing to realize with spelling alphabets is that what word is used for a letter is not important, just that both parties understand what letter it represents. If I were to transmit a message to you in the NATO/ICAO alphabet of "hotel alpha tango November Oscar tango echo", the message is "hatnote", because of the letters in use. Subsequently, ease of pronunciation in normal speech is not a factor. Ultimately it comes down to how easy it is to distinguish the words on a transmission

The advantage of long vowel sounds to represent the vowels comes from the old first grade pronunciation mnemonic that long vowels are pronounced as the letter's name, and each is distinct. They're also typically the stressed vowel, while short vowels often aren't. So Able, Easy, Item, Oboe/Ocean, etc. that have been used over the years, but are not currently part of the NATO/ICAO set, have an advantage of giving the exact, distinct name of the letter, on the stressed first syllable of the word. oknazevad (talk) 17:22, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem with this is that the sounds we associate with so-called 'long-A', 'long-E', and 'long-I' in English are not spelled with those letters in other languages. In Spanish, for example, the American English 'long-A', 'long-E', and 'long-I' sounds are spelled /e/, /i/, and /ay/, respectively. Able, Easy, etc. only give 'the exact, distinct name of the letter' to native speakers of American English. Isaac (talk) 16:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)