Popular Culture
The origin of the name Adam-12 from the television series with that same title is believed to have come from this alphabet. To the present, the LAPD calls its basic two-man patrol car an "A" unit - and the letter "A" is spoken as "Adam" in the phonetic alphabet. So 1-Adam-12 translates to One (LAPD Central Division)-Two Man Patrol Car (Adam unit) in patrol car 12. The patrol car uses the last two numbers of the car number for radio use and the last three numbers of the six digit car number on the roof of the patrol car. For exacmple, Adam 12 on the radio and 012 on the patrol car roof.
In the television show CHiPs, motorcycle units were identified with the letter M, such as 7M4 (Seven Mary Four) for officer Frank Poncherello.
Also, since many police, fire department, and rescue squad TV programs and movies are set in Los Angeles, the words of the LAPD phonetic alphabet have become familiar in the United States, Canada and English-speaking countries around the world due to the wide reach of American entertainment media.
On early seasons of Wheel of Fortune, a close variant of the LAPD phonetic alphabet was used.
Read more about this topic: LAPD Phonetic Alphabet
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“I am writing to resist the view that Europe and civilization are going to Hell. If I am being “crucified for an idea”Mthat is, the coherent idea around which my muddles accumulated—it is probably the idea that European culture ought to survive, that the best qualities of it ought to survive along with whatever cultures, in whatever universality. Against the propaganda of terror and the propaganda of luxury, have you a nice simple answer?”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)