NATO phonetic alphabet by those who exchange voice messages by radio or telephone, regardless of language differences or the quality of the communication channel. The 26 code words in the NATO phonetic alphabet are assigned to the 26 letters of the English alphabet in alphabetical order as follows: , Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, , Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. Strict adherence to the prescribed spelling words is required in order to avoid the problems of confusion that the spelling alphabet is designed to overcome. As noted in a
International Phonetic Alphabet 1944 "Pronouncing Dictionary of American English" Many British dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary and some learner's dictionaries such as the "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary" and the "Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary", now use the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the pronunciation of words. However, most American (and some British) volumes use one of a variety of pronunciation respelling systems, intended to be more comfortable for readers of English. For example, the respelling systems in many American dictionaries (such as "Merriam-Webster") use for IPA and for IPA , reflecting common representations of those sounds in written English, using only letters of