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Revision as of 11:41, 8 March 2007 by SmackBot (talk | contribs) (Date/fix maintenance tags)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The LAPD phonetic alphabet is not a phonetic alphabet in the sense in which that term is used in phonetics, i.e., it is not a system for transcribing speech sounds. See the phonetic alphabet disambiguation page, and also phonetic notation.
At some point in the early history of emergency service mobile radio systems, the Los Angeles Police Department developed its own phonetic alphabet for relaying precise word spellings. For example, the license plate "8QXG518" might be read by a civilian as "eight kyew eks gee five eighteen" but with accuracy being paramount, it would be voiced as "eight queen x-ray george five one eight." Despite the development in 1941 of the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet and its replacement, circa 1956, by the NATO phonetic alphabet (used in military, aviation, and telecommunications), the LAPD and most other law enforcement and emergency service agencies throughout the United States continue to use it.
The LAPD phonetic alphabet is also known as the APCO phonetic alphabet, named after the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International (APCO) , which was responsible for making the LAPD alphabet known and adopted by other law enforcement agencies in the US.
The LAPD phonetic alphabet represents the letters of the English alphabet using words as follows:
| Letter | Phonetic | Letter | Phonetic | Letter | Phonetic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Adam | M | Mary | Y | Young |
| B | Boy | N | Nora | Z | Zebra |
| C | Charles | O | Ocean | 0 | Zero |
| D | David | P | Paul | 1 | One |
| E | Edward | Q | Queen | 2 | Two |
| F | Frank | R | Robert | 3 | Three |
| G | George | S | Sam | 4 | Four |
| H | Henry | T | Tom | 5 | Five |
| I | Ida | U | Union | 6 | Six |
| J | John | V | Victor | 7 | Seven |
| K | King | W | William | 8 | Eight |
| L | Lincoln | X | X-ray | 9 | Niner |
There are local variations of this system in use. Agencies in the Bay Area, and the California Highway Patrol, use a version that maps the letter "Y" to "Yellow" and other agencies' versions map the letter "B" to "Baker" or "Bravo". Other agency variations include mapping the letter "N" to "Nancy" instead of "Nora" or mapping the letter "Y" to "Yesterday."
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