The world of letters

[womzilla]

In much of the world, equities are traded by symbol, not by name. In the West, symbols are usually just strings of letters, sometimes abbreviations of the company name (Microsoft is MSFT, Sirius Radio is SIRI); sometimes they ARE the company name (Yum Brands, the holding company that owns a lot of food brands like Taco Bell, is YUM; 3M is MMM); and sometimes they're just unrelated or downright silly (US Steel is X; Southwest Airlines is LUV).

Unsurprisingly, because the names of the letters of the English alphabet sound alike, traders talking to each other often spell out symbol names--"M as in Mike, S as in Sarah, F as in Frank, T as in Ted"--because making mistakes is really bad. Getting AMN confused with ANN can be a 5000% error.

I realized shortly after taking a job in the equities industry that I really should learn a formal Radio Alphabet (e.g., the NATO phonetic alphabet), but I had so much else to absorb early on that I dragged my feet around it. About two months into the job, I was walking past the trading desk and I heard one of the traders telling a customer about a trade in symbol FPP, which he then spelled out as "fuck pussy pussy".

Within 5 minutes, I had a printout of the NATO alphabet taped to my monitor. I was never going to be at that much of a loss for words.

Comments

[thetalkingmoose.livejournal.com]

While I was working as an Executive Assitant, I found it incredibly useful to know the NATO phonetic alphabet because of Sabre Record Locators. It's been over five years since I used it regularly, and I'm surprised at how well I still remember it. When I read your anecdote about the trader, I immediately thought "Foxtrot Papa Papa."

[supergee.livejournal.com]

A most unfortunate choice of words by your trader, as F and S sound alike, both in words and as letters.

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

:)

Sorry, but really: :)

[ferret-herder.livejournal.com]

I think Southwest picked LUV because it's HQ'd at Dallas' Love Field. But it's still very silly.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Back when I was working at Copymat, I'd have to give machines' serial numbers when calling them in for service. There was one that was MPU7765, and at one point I gave that as "MPU, M as in Mary, P as in Paul, U as in...um, as in...as in something beginning with U."

(The rep on the phone helpfully suggested "umbrella"; the NATO one is "uniform".)

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I have to use it for my first name as it's impossible to hear on the phone.

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

My dad's years as a ham radio operator helped me pick up the NATO alphabet. My dad's call sign was November 3 Echo Golf Romeo so those are the easiest for me to remember (which made it really obvious how many of the characters in the show Dollhouse had NATO letters for names).

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

All of the Dolls in the Los Angles house are given names from the NATO radio alphabet--it's mentioned explicitly a couple of times, most prominently when they're visiting the DC house (where the Dolls are named for Greek gods) and Topher makes a "Kilo" joke when that character is introduced. Despite this, I didn't twig to the fact that Alpha was a rogue former Doll until they explained it.

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

Right, I said "many" but I meant "all the Dolls" -- sorry for being unclear! I think I figured it out after Echo, Victor and Sierra were named, definitely by the time they mentioned November. I'm still kind of bummed that they never assembled all the Dolls and called them by name; I always wanted to see how they'd handle some of the funkier names, like Golf or Xray.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you know Robert L. Fish's Schlock Homes stories? They hinge, for the most part, on Homes misinterpreting an obvious message and actually assisting in the success of a crime. (In "The Adventure of the Disappearance of Whistler's Mother," he actually solves the crime and thinks he's failed dismally.)

In "The Adventure of Black, Peter," the final story in *The Memoirs of Schlock Homes,* Inspector Balustrade shows Homes what the reader can clearly see is the plan to rob a bank. Homes, however, decides it's a code in the military alphabet and that the suspect, a journalist, was actually only trying to break the story of "Bravo! Whisky* Mike Sierra, Yankee Romeo, Quebec Tango Victor!"

The result is another burgled bank, and my introduction to the NATO alphabet.

Nothing was Easy in Easy, which'd now be Echo...

* Fish uses the British spelling of "whiskey," as befits a series where the U.S. is regularly referred to as "the American colonies."

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

One of John Varley's more famous novellas is "Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo", which I've always thought were terrific character names.