Talk:Able Baker

KP, in the American army, is Kitchen Patrol: scullery work, likely as punishment duty. --Old Dickens 17:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

So nobody else would reckon it went "Alpha Beta Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot..."? Able Baker? Say what? --Knmatt 19:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

"Able Baker Charlie..." is the old British Armed forces/police phonetic alphabet - it was a bone of contention when it was supplanted, for operational reasons, with the universally more accepted American version. --AgProv 20:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly. The US and UK/Commonwealth used essentially the same system during WWII and were happy with it. The new version came about in the Fifties at the insistence of NATO's non-Anglophone members (mainly the French), and so instead of common English words were substituted words from an "international" vocabulary. Incidentally, we Yanks spell it 'Alpha' as well. It's the Continentals who don't like ph for f. Solicitr 21:47, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Alpha (Alfa for Merkins), Bravo..., anyway. --Old Dickens 20:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

nononono it should be Adam, Bertil, Cesar, David, Erik, Filip ok I'll go away now Iron Hippo 21:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The old WWI system! Nice! Solicitr 21:47, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The old WWI system! Nice!

A reference to this, perhaps? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads

Ah, thanks for all the clarifications!

It has just occured to me, as yet another "expert" bites the dust with their doctorate proven to have been conferred by a North American Degree Mill (ie, worthless paper), that Escrow could be rather like those quaint small universities in Alabama and Georgia that operate from an upstairs bedroom and sell ornate-looking degrees, in return for substantial tuition fees. Somewhere in Escrow, the Discworld equivalent of Power Cable, Nebraska, there may be a shady degree mill?--AgProv 17:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)