Spelling Alphabets - History

History

Prior to spelling alphabets, the words used to indicate English letters were "a", "bee", "cee", "dee", "e",.... Their sounds are difficult to discriminate orally, hence the invention of telephone alphabets, and eventually radio alphabets, used by militaries. Confusion of the oral indication of letters is not dangerous in most common situations, but in the military it can have lethal consequences. Prior to radio and telephone, telegraph required no telephone alphabet because morse code served the same purpose and did not rely on human utterance of letters.

British Army signallers began using a partial spelling alphabet in the late 19th century. First recorded in 1904 this system differentiated only letters most frequently misunderstood: Ack Beer (or Bar) C D E F G H I J K L eMma N O Pip Q R eSses Toc U Vic W X Y Z. This alphabet was the origin of phrases such as "ack-ack" (A.A. for anti-aircraft), "pip-emma" for pm and Toc H for Talbot House. It was developed on the Western Front of the First World War and later formally codified to provide a phonetic equivalent for all 26 letters (see comparative tabulation of military alphabets before 1956).

For the general populace, and finance professionals in particular, entries such as "November" for the letter N and "Kilo" for the letter K were considered too long or obscure, and an alternative alphabet arose. Common first names were a popular choice, and as a result the First Name Alphabet, first compiled by the financial firm JSC, has become quite commonly used.