Thanks. Sadly I'm old enough to think of 20 years ago as being relatively recent!
I knew that the phonetic alphabet had been around for a long time, but was interested in when it started to be used on the railway.
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How are train service 'identities' (like 9X99) pronounced by rail staff?
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swt_passenger
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Using “niner“is actually an international vhf voice radio thing, not American. But there are agreed pronunciations for all the 10 digits to avoid mis-hearing. They’re supposed to be helpful to people when comms quality is poor. Only tree, fife, and niner are the ones that sound strange. It was taught on the course for my coastal radio certificate.
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Ironically I evidently wasn’t clear with what I meant earlier -
I am not disputing that it’s “Niner” - categorically it is.
It’s the pronunciation and annunciation of “Niner”, typically by our American friends that puts enormous over-emphasis on the “-Er” such that it stands out distinctly as a separate syllable that I disparagingly refer to.
My peer trainer in my first role on the railway was a former RAF Air Traffic Controller of 20+ years - he taught/corrected me to say it as @AM9 put upthread: Like “nine” but with an emphasis on the second “n” sound. Same with “tree” and “fife” they don’t need to be laboured into different sounding words; it’s a more subtle change to clear up ambiguity.
I am not disputing that it’s “Niner” - categorically it is.
It’s the pronunciation and annunciation of “Niner”, typically by our American friends that puts enormous over-emphasis on the “-Er” such that it stands out distinctly as a separate syllable that I disparagingly refer to.
My peer trainer in my first role on the railway was a former RAF Air Traffic Controller of 20+ years - he taught/corrected me to say it as @AM9 put upthread: Like “nine” but with an emphasis on the second “n” sound. Same with “tree” and “fife” they don’t need to be laboured into different sounding words; it’s a more subtle change to clear up ambiguity.
swt_passenger
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Yes I’d agree it’s lengthening it like that that into 2 syllables that would be over the top.
mirodo
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I for The Engine...
py_megapixel
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I suppose conventions are different for phone numbers though.
pdeaves
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Lots of people use 'S for Sugar', which leads my brain to 'P for pneumatic, K for knife', etc.
godfreycomplex
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Mid 90s I think
hexagon789
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A for 'orses
B for mutton
C for 'th highlanders
D for 'ential
E for Adam
F for 'vescence
G for police
H for respect
I for Novello
J for oranges
K for 'ancis
L for leather
M for 'sis
N for 'adig
O for the garden wall
P for a penny
Q for a song
R for mo'
S for you
T for two
U for films
V for La France
W for a bob
X for breakfast
Y for Gawd's sake
Z for breezes
Clapham and Dwyer, 1936
Would it be perhaps related to the introduction of more radio based communication particularly between drivers and signallers? I don't know but I've always assumed that signal post telephones being landline(?) would have similar quality sound to a usual landline which is typically good enough that saying "One B Twelve" is unlikely to cause confusion unlike over a dodgy radio?
Signal post telephones I've used have always had pretty rubbish call quality.
Indeed: 'oh' was GPO official pronunciation and the letter O was mapped to number 0 on British telephone dials up to the 1960s to prevent any confusion. Eg Oxford's STD code was orginally 0OX2 (0092) and 'Dial O for Operator'. The reintroduction of letters to telephone keypads since the 1990s using the American mapping of O to 6 has not stopped 'oh' from remaining common in spoken telephone and text numbers. Even the solitary example I can remember of an American-style 'word' telephone number publicised in the UK - 0800 REVERSE - was advertised as 'oh eight hundred reverse' despite the 0 not being one of the letters.
bramling
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There has generally been a push to press use of phonetic across the board, simply to get people used to using it, so that it becomes second-nature in a safety-critical communication. Same applies to signal numbers.
My personal views on this are mixed.
Western Lord
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I used to love Whirlybirds! However you can hear "fife" and "niner" being used by the gals in the control room talking to the fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain in British war films of the forties and fifities. Completely off thread but regarding Americanisms, I was astonished when reading some old late fifties/early sixties London Evening Standards on an online archive to find them constantly using the tern "airplane" in reports.
DarloRich
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S for Sugar is what it used to be in both the first and second world war phonetic alphabets used by UK forces and thus became the standard internationally agreed in 1947. It was in use until the standard NATO alphabet came into being.
American accents are generally "rhotic" meaning they pronounce their "r"s at the end of words (consider the American "car" vs. British "cah") whereas British accents aren't anymore, except the famous south-west accent of course - "harvester".
hexagon789
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And most Scottish and Northern Irish accents... and some Welsh ones (mainly in the north)... and certain Northern ones with declining speakers (in Lancashire and in Yorkshire)... certain areas of the Borders... and certain traditional rural accents in the South/South East of England that are practically extinct... but were still common enough in the 1950s/60s and still have a few older speakers...
Yes, no British accents are rhotic anymore...
weastebusdepot
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I was once on a PTS training course with a guy who whenever anyone mentioned "whiskey" would say "Thanks. I'll have a large one". Might have been the same course where a debate on India versus Indigo took up far more time than was needed.
Mcr Warrior
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Could easily be confused with "One P Twelve" for example.
"One Bravo One Two" is preferable.
Yes? I'm not disputing that? My point was simply that until the move to radio based communication (though @skyhigh's experience suggests that SPTs aren't all that when it comes to clarity of sound) there may not have been seen to have as much need to adopt full phonetic alphabet along with sounding out individual numbers.
The current 'phonetic' alpahabet was devised and introduced by NATO and ICAO in the early 1950s, and has gradually spread into fairly universal world-wide use (at least for countries using the Latin alphabet).
There is a lot out there on the web for those prepared to seek it out... one of the considerations for the choice of words was that they should be familiar to English, French and Spanish speakers.
Phonetic alphabets, for spelling words out, first came into use at the beginning of the 20th Century, initially for military (and naval) use, and by telephone companies - initially all had their own. Seek and you shall find... including some rather useless one, as at https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2016/02/18/worlds-unhelpful-phonetic-alphabet/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/LibraryofBabel/comments/dooiic/a_mostly_useless_phonetic_alphabet/
The LNWR had (so by about 1920) a version - see http://www.lnwrs.org.uk/Glossary/TelgCode02.php - which was also adopted by the LMSR - it is the same as the pre war GWR one mentioned: was this an RCH standard?
There is a lot out there on the web for those prepared to seek it out... one of the considerations for the choice of words was that they should be familiar to English, French and Spanish speakers.
Phonetic alphabets, for spelling words out, first came into use at the beginning of the 20th Century, initially for military (and naval) use, and by telephone companies - initially all had their own. Seek and you shall find... including some rather useless one, as at https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2016/02/18/worlds-unhelpful-phonetic-alphabet/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/LibraryofBabel/comments/dooiic/a_mostly_useless_phonetic_alphabet/
The LNWR had (so by about 1920) a version - see http://www.lnwrs.org.uk/Glossary/TelgCode02.php - which was also adopted by the LMSR - it is the same as the pre war GWR one mentioned: was this an RCH standard?
swt_passenger
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Even the wiki article headed NATO phonetic alphabet has some good history stuff further down the page, for instance a table showing various predecessor systems. Pre WW2 capitals and other major worldwide cities were apparently common.
NATO phonetic alphabet - Wikipedia
Yes audio quality hasn’t been great on SPTs. However my hunch is there were several incidents / near misses of which a major cause was highlighted as misinterpretation of information that led to more widespread use of the phonetic alphabet on the railway as an area of safety critical communications.
Without speaking to staff (such as signallers) in those roles who were around in 60s/70s/80s we might not know whether this was a sudden thing or a gradual shift over time.
Fairly sure they do say “zero”? Although now you mention it I think I’ve heard both!
Ambient Sheep
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I remember when I was a little boy in the early 1970s, the GPO phonebooks recommended the use of "fife" and "niner" when reading out numbers over the phone in order to avoid confusion.
Siemens Trains
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Maybe I'm receiving your message badly, but are you suggesting the numbers 3 and 5 are often pronounced "tree" and "Fife" to avoid sounding like different words? Or are these examples of pronunciations to be avoided so that it's clear you actually mean the numbers three and five? In a British railway context you may find plenty fallen trees or destinations in Fife. I can't imagine many German negatives arising in English dialogue.
The other numbers seem to have more scope for confusion with valid English alternatives. Number 1 could sound like the English word won, 2 could be too, 4 could be for, 6 could be sick, 8 could be ate and so on.
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That system of pronuncing numbers is aviation practice, which uses standard phraseology. When following those rules, it will be clear that the word is a number.
Ex-controller
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Always use phonetic alphabet.
Say numbers individually
Use zero for 0
Keep safety critical messages Accurate, Brief, Concise, repeat back and reach a clear understanding.
Say numbers individually
Use zero for 0
Keep safety critical messages Accurate, Brief, Concise, repeat back and reach a clear understanding.
Technically niner is standard radio phraseology in the UK.
Numbers should be pronounced as follows but this is confined to aviation generally and even then is fairly rare unless there is a difficulty understanding:
1 Wun
2 Two
3 Tree
4 Fow-er
5 Fife
6 Six
7 Se-VEN
8 Eight
9 Niner
0 Zero
Whole hundreds and thousands can also be used for example Speedbird two se-Ven Tree descend and maintain wun two thousand feet...
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Aviation obviously has a much bigger issue with the language barrier than the UK rail network, the vast majority of pilots will not be native English speakers so the exaggerated pronunciation makes total sense really.
Although that being said listening to some of the ATC comms from the US is absolutely awful and I'm amazed it doesn't go horribly wrong more often.
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