Tests during pregnancy

I only know it because I use it in aviation every day at work... but the average joe in the UK is unlikely to know it.

In fact, the most embarrassing moment of my life was when I was talking on the phone to pilots in the cockpit and I had to relay the weather in phonetic alphabet... except I’d forgotten it all - I could only remember the Greek alphabet! The worst part of it was that the call dropped out and when they called back, I picked up, but they didn’t realise the call had connected and I could hear them making fun of the fact that I didn’t know the phonetic alphabet! And if that wasn’t bad enough, I had a colleague and a whole other aircrew standing behind me, trying to help me out with the letters!

I never made that mistake again, and carried a cheat-sheet with me for several months after that.

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I'm glad to see you mention the "average Joe" not knowing the phonetic alphabet because honestly it was an expectation I had, also, which was quickly quashed!

What a horrible experience you had! That's when it's time to quit and move on.

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This is true.  It does seem everyone knows it here and only some know it in the USA.

I can just about say my email address that way now! 

What a horrible experience you had! That's when it's time to quit and move on.

No quitting here... I was recently qualified when that happened, and I've been doing the job for 8 years now .

Oh ksand!  That’s funny (for us).  But I would have died inside!

I learned it when I worked at Orlando Police.  Didn’t know it before then.

Oh ksand!  That’s funny (for us).  But I would have died inside!

I learned it when I worked at Orlando Police.  Didn’t know it before then.

I learned it because my dad made me.

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Yes, I know it is. I was being tongue in cheek.  But, it's because I never heard anyone use it in the US. Everyone uses it here.

Persons with a military or amateur radio background  in the US of A use it.

Persons with a military or amateur radio background  in the US of A use it.

Sigh, I guess I was making a bad tongue in cheek joke in which only I was laughing.   

Of course military people use it around the world. It's not like I never heard it in the USA, it was more that if you're on a phone call with a call centre, in the UK or India or whereever interacts with the British public, it's all about the phonetic alphabet. 
So if a person does this:

"S for Sugar, F for Freddy, B for Bertie..."

. 

They read back to you, "So that's S for Sierra, F for Foxtrot and B for Beta"   Probably by rules that they have to (with their cheat sheets next to their phone!). 

They read back to you, "So that's S for Sierra, F for Foxtrot and B for Beta"   Probably by rules that they have to (with their cheat sheets next to their phone!).

And that is how I learned to say my email address that way!   

I learned it because my dad made me.

I learned the phonetic alphabet in the Air Force, and because we sometimes dealt with it in written form in messages that had to be judged "valid" before we could use them, we had to know how each character is spelled. ALFA, rather than ALPHA, and PAPA, not PAPPA, and that kind of thing.