Am I wrong?

[wolffsekunde.livejournal.com]

When giving our customers the nameservers to assign to their domain names, oftentimes the letters get muffled through the phone so we have to use what I like to call unspelling, like "f like frank, u like umbrella, c like cat"... you get the picture. So for our customers the nameservers most of them use are dns1.companyname.com and dns2.companyname.com and I found the dns part always got screwed up over the phone. gns, dms, dnf... pretty much any combination of letters would form as a result of either my stuffy nose or poor telco lines.

I found myself making up ways to unspell it but was never satisfied with my choices. Delta Nevada Sierra was all military like, but just not my style. Devil Nine Sadomasochism was another good choice, but not quite professional. So then I came up with one that was fun, but still serious.

Dancing Nancy Sinatra.

Any other good unspellings out there?

Comments

[fearrett.livejournal.com]

"O as in... shit I can't think of any name that starts with O"
-customer earlier today.

[xanthrant.livejournal.com]

how abt:

Did
Not
STUTTER

[justsomegurl.livejournal.com]

One tech here says S as in Sam, M as in Mary, TP as in Toilet Paper.
Sometimes the customer cracks up and other times you get this awkward silence. I think some people are too prudish for the Toilet Paper example :)

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

I just tell them to do a whois lookup on our own domain name and grab them off of there.

I hate people who "unspell," for example, d as in bob, b as in dog, p as in call, etc. These are usually the most simple-minded callers :)

[nem0.livejournal.com]

Over the summer, we kept having to refer people to a registration URL that included the subdirectory "wwwcf". I'm sure you can imagine the potential ways someone could mis-hear that (nevermind that people hear "www" and want to put it at the FRONT of the URL... whoever set up our subdirectories needs to be beaten).

It eventually turned into a contest of who could make the most absurd combination of cee eff. We had to stop short of obscenities, but anything else was fair game.

Corinthian Fandango was my favorite.

[snoopyh42.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_alphabet I know it sounds all military-like, but it's unmistakably clear.

Hehe

[elcaminohippie.livejournal.com]

many years ago when I was working at a rental barn that rented U-Haul trucks I had a good one. My boss was retired Navy, and he would always address the trucks as EL-149 Delta Charlie. Drove me nuts.

One day JH-213XM comes in. I radio the front and say "JH-213 X as in xylophone, M as in nmemonic has just come in."

[knittinggoddess.livejournal.com]

that's me all the time.

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

"What's a whois?"

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

Word. The radio alphabet is required reading for anyone who has to talk on the phone.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't use anything else.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

Uhm, why don't you have your real server admin give me a call, k?

[louisville-mike.livejournal.com]

Don't let your feelings about the military get in the way of their spelling format (I'm presuming here, I know). It may sound a little stiff, but it is unmistakable, and all the engineer types dig it.

[siobheanne.livejournal.com]

We unspell too... Mostly using just whatever comes to mind, though most of us have a list of the military words hanging around. I have a bad habit of saying this like "J as in Jerry.... er, Jerry starting with a J, I mean. Not Gerry with a G." *idjit*.

[harmer.livejournal.com]

At work I always say SMTP as "send mail to people." Most customers answer with "omg is that what it really stands for?!!?"

Sometimes I say "sam michael toilet paper" like a previous commenter said, but no customers EVER laugh, only my co-workers who hear me say it.

I've been tempted to say SMTP as "send me to paris" but that seems cheesy.

[katyism.livejournal.com]

I use simple things like animals and food, because half the time the regular military/radio alphabet isn't understood by some international callers.