Audience, byline, copyright . . . code words for writers
We’ve all seen movies with fighter pilots, spies, and police dispatchers using words like “alfa, tango, foxtrot” to spell words phonetically. What I never knew was that the code words they were using to represent the letters of the alphabet come from something called the NATO phonetic alphabet.
The NATO phonetic alphabet — officially known as the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (ICAO) — is used so that critical messages are more likely to be pronounced correctly and understood by those speaking over the radio or telephone.
The 26 words in the ICAO are Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.
I thought it might be interesting to create a writer’s phonetic alphabet and use terms that we could all relate to. Here’s what I came up with.
- Audience
- Byline
- Copyright
- Deadline
- Edit
- Fiction
- Genre
- Hack
- Irregardless
- Jargon
- Keyword
- Lede
- Manuscript
- Notes
- Outline
- Prose
- Quote
- Reprint
- Source
- Tag
- Utilize
- Verb
- Whom
- Xbox
- Your (or you’re)
- Zing
Readers . . . do you have any other terms to suggest?
