On Sun, Jan 03, 2016 at 08:57:33PM +0000, Paul A. Rubin wrote: > Scott Kostyshak <skostysh <at> lyx.org> writes: > > > > PS. "Roger" strangely works fine here. It is an expression that is often > > used in this context. It comes from radio communication, I believe (or > > at least the movies suggest that). In order to confirm that you received > > what the interlocutor said (because radio communication can be noisy), > > you say "Roger that" or "Roger". > > > > <tl;dr>You (and the movies) are correct. The original abbreviation (which I > believe goes back to the days of using Morse code, when abbreviations were > almost as critical as they are on Twitter now) was "R" for "received". With > voice communications, individual letters are easy to misinterpret, so the > practice became to use more bandwidth, not less, by using a predefined word > that began with the correct letter. Thus, depending on religious preference, > "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, ..., Roger, ...." or "Able (Abel?), Baker, Charlie, > ..., Roger, ..." For "R", the standard choices are "Roger" or "Romeo". > > As a further tangent, NATO named Soviet submarine classes with a sequence of > letters that were expanded using radio codes. Thus Whiskey-class subs get > their name from the letter "W" and not the captain's beverage of choice > (which would more likely be vodka).
Very interesting! Thanks for the history lesson. Scott
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