Timeline for When using the spelling alphabet, is it OK (or even preferable) to spell letters separately in cases where a combination of letters has its own word?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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Mar 8, 2022 at 5:01 | vote | accept | Tom | ||
Mar 6, 2022 at 1:35 | comment | added | Crissov | Repeat, try Äpfel or A-Umlaut, give up. If I go with just Ä or without spelling it out altogether, I usually get E, but sometimes also I or even IE instead (because then it becomes a better known name). | |
Mar 5, 2022 at 22:24 | comment | added | Tom | Interesting, @Crissov. How do you deal with Ä then? | |
Mar 5, 2022 at 8:06 | comment | added | Crissov | In the TV show Glücksrad (Wheel of Fortune) during the 1990s with analog transmission, contestants regularly used (or perhaps were even required to use) the spelling alphabet in the “X wie Xanthippe” way. This excluded SCH and CH because they were not considered single letters in the game. Umlauts, however, were separate letters unlike in crossword puzzles, but having one in my name I can assure you that many people have a hard time understanding “Ä wie Ärger” etc. correctly. | |
Mar 4, 2022 at 12:15 | answer | added | Paul Frost | timeline score: 1 | |
Mar 3, 2022 at 6:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackGerman/status/1499263327113027585 | ||
Mar 3, 2022 at 0:28 | comment | added | mirabilos | Most Germans don’t know any phonetic spelling alphabet and just pick words that begin with the letter in question, or these they know from the TV show Glücksrad (for the over-30 or so anyway, it probably no longer airs). If at all, the NATO alphabet seems to be somewhat known. | |
Mar 2, 2022 at 16:37 | answer | added | AndreKR | timeline score: 4 | |
Mar 2, 2022 at 11:25 | answer | added | tofro | timeline score: 5 | |
Mar 2, 2022 at 10:06 | comment | added | orithena | @RDBury I, for example, do use the standard german spelling alphabet on the phone (albeit only for my surname). | |
Mar 2, 2022 at 4:15 | history | became hot network question | |||
Mar 1, 2022 at 21:46 | answer | added | HalvarF | timeline score: 13 | |
Mar 1, 2022 at 21:32 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | @RDBury: Communications technology has also advanced to the point where spreadsheets can be transferred as JSON or XML packets that can be parsed by the recipient. Yet, as we know since the ongoing pandemic, numbers of infected/vaccinated people are still transferred by fax (i.e. as scanned raster graphics) between health agencies. Knowing that, I am pretty sure there are some places where the spelling alphabet is still officially used. (By the way, I think it would be "B as in Berta" in the German spelling alphabet, but - again - in non-professional contexts, most words with B will do.) | |
Mar 1, 2022 at 21:11 | comment | added | Tom | @RDBury, and this is already off-topic, but I must say that depending on where one is and which mobile carrier one uses, limited audibility is definitely still an issue with phone calls in Germany. And, perhaps more importantly, for many service providers texting is not an option. And, depending on one's (possibly foreign) name and the name of the street one lives in (including some very German names), some people might need to resort to the spelling alphabet more often than others, even when there are no acoustic issues involved. | |
Mar 1, 2022 at 21:09 | comment | added | Tom | @RDBury, you're raising an interesting point. I can only say from my own personal experience living in Germany that I've often encountered both the need to use spelling aids (e.g. giving my name over the phone) and people using the spelling alphabet for it quite naturally. I'm always amazed at the ease and fluency with which (some) people do it; but I've also met native German speakers who don't know the spelling alphabet at all (usually because they did some of their schooling abroad, at least those I personally know). | |
Mar 1, 2022 at 20:53 | comment | added | RDBury | @O. R. Mapper: I'm wondering just how many German speakers would actually use a standardized spelling alphabet professionally. I'm sure there must be some, but communications technology has advanced to the point where noisy phone lines are rare and you can usually use text as an alternative. If I ever needed to clarify spelling, I'd probably just make it up as I go: "B as in boy", not "B as in bravo". | |
Mar 1, 2022 at 20:45 | comment | added | Tom | Thanks for your comment, @O.R.Mapper! I've edited the question to clarify; please consider posting what you said also as an answer :) | |
Mar 1, 2022 at 20:43 | history | edited | Tom | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Clarification of use case following comment
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Mar 1, 2022 at 20:30 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | Maybe a context needs to be specified for this question. As a "lay user" (who would, if at all, rarely use the spelling alphabet eg. when spelling a name over the phone), I was not aware of those abbreviations for letter combinations. Consequently, I would (mis)understand "Charlotte" and "Schule" as representing the letters "c" and "s", respectively. However, this may be completely different in contexts where people use the standardized spelling alphabet professionally, where misunderstandings absolutely must not happen. | |
S Mar 1, 2022 at 20:11 | review | First questions | |||
Mar 1, 2022 at 22:05 | |||||
S Mar 1, 2022 at 20:11 | history | asked | Tom | CC BY-SA 4.0 |