Conversion

A phonetic alphabet assigns code words to the letters of the English alphabet.  Using the code words helps prevent verbal confusion between letters with similar sounds, such as "b" and "d".  This week I've had several Facebook friends post a message on their wall using the code words of the military phonetic alphabet; it looks bizarre, but once you figure out what's going on it's easy (but time consuming) to read and interpret.  The posts made me wonder how much free time someone would have to actually write out all that phonetic alphabet.

I found out, though, that it's not necessary to do all the work yourself.  There's a Website for it.  MilitarySpot.com has a form that converts text to the phontetic alphabet used by the U.S. Military.  To try it out, I typed in the first two lines of the song "Taps":

Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky

This is what I got back:

DELTA - alpha - yankee - space india - sierra - space delta - oscar - november - echo - comma - space golf - oscar - november - echo - space tango - hotel - echo - space sierra - uniform - november - - -
FOXTROT - romeo - oscar - mike - space tango - hotel - echo - space lima - alpha - kilo - echo - sierra - comma - space foxtrot - romeo - oscar - mike - space tango - hotel - echo - space hotel - india - lima - lima - sierra - comma - space foxtrot - romeo - oscar - mike - space tango - hotel - echo - space sierra - kilo - yankee

You never know when something like this might come in handy.