NATO phonetic alphabet
The NATO phonetic alphabet is a set of code words for the letters of the Latin alphabet. They are used to spell words when people speak over the radio or telephone, when people from different countries are speaking with different accents, or in other situations where people may not clearly hear the normal names of the letters. This is important for accuracy in the military and in air travel and shipping. For instance, it may be difficult to hear whether a person is saying the letter "pee" (P) or "bee" (B). The NATO code words "papa" and "bravo" are much clearer. (Each code word begins with the letter that it stands for.)