This troper had just returned home with take-out from Outback Steakhouse when his mother informed him that they'd got the order wrong. They had called and asked for this troper's name and home address, so that they could mail him a gift certificate, and Mom obligingly provided our last name: "N as in Nancy, G as in George":It's the Cantonese word for the number 5, can alternately be spelled with an I or an E in front, and is pronounced "Ing"; no relation to the Vietnamese "Nguyen". This troper's mother, understand, grew up in Indonesia, speaking primarily Indonesian with a smattering of Dutch and German; she learned English when she immigrated to America and has very little accent, but enough to make some things difficult over the phone. By sheer coincidence this troper and his sister chose that evening to call her on it. "Not everybody will understand 'Georsh'. Say Nevada next time. That way when you pronounce it 'Geors-sha,' they still know what you're saying because they're already expecting a state." And, sure enough, the gift certificate arrived a few days later, made out to... Mr. Mv. Yes: M as in Mancy, V as in Veorge.

I have a habit of specifically spelling out my name in the NATO phonetic alphabet over the phone. Joke Oscar November. Notice it's like a cheap vacation package; no Hotel.

Just to be nitpicky, it's Juliet, not Joke

This troper will tend to use this for spelling out her post code. She's also had to use it for spelling out her surname before. It's something she's picked up from her mother.

This troper does it at work, using NATO phonetics when verifying blood products for transfusion. (It's a two-person process, involving the reading of a checklist and verifying three different patient, lab and donor codes, all of which are alphanumeric.) It's also helpful when reporting off to staff whose first (or even second) language isn't English.

This troper, thanks to 6 years of military experience (not service - DoD civilian in a military capacity), will always lapse into NATO phonetic for spelling. Even for non spelling situations like reading rural route addresses (Whiskey-one-two-four-eight-one, November-six-three-three, Romeo-Romeo-one-four instead of W12481N633 RR 14). Confuses postmen to no end.

This (At the time) pogue E-1 troper, while relaying an infantry Staff Sergeant's last name over the radio using the military alphabet, accidentally used "Rodeo" instead of "Romeo" for R. He hoped nobody would notice, being relatively similar in pronunciation. The Staff Sergeant did notice. He was not amused.

This troper always uses the military alphabet, even when it isn't needed.

Alpha!

A handy tip that I could not fit anywhere else: If you're stuck talking to an automated phone system, and your account number includes letters, most of the time, the computer will understand the phonetic alphabet. For instance, if it's something like AM215, you can get away with saying "Alfa Mike 2 1 5" to the phone system.