It's Bravo, not Baker!

Whenever the Trek writers have a character use a "spelling alphabet", for the most part they use the NATO phonetic alphabet, but for the letter B they consistently and inappropriately use Baker when they should be using Bravo:

(Brothers) Riker: I've got a clear path to panel J14 baker.

(The Next Phase) Ro: I'm at section twenty-three baker, near Sickbay.

(Disaster) Riker: Thirteen sixty-five baker. That should put us right behind shuttlebay two.

(TOS: The Naked Time) Spock: Go to Alert Baker two. Seal off main sections.

(DS9: In the Pale Moonlight) Worf: Sections fifty-two Baker through sixty-two Baker have been secured.

(TOS: The Menagerie) Spock: Go to tape Abel Seven Baker. Execute instructions.

(Ent: Harbinger) Reed: We're coming up on access tube seventeen baker.

(Ent: Affliction) Reed: Computer, establish an encrypted comm.-link. Starfleet frequency seven nine baker.

(DS9: Defiant) Tamal: Squadron Baker has arrived at their checkpoint.

(TNG: Rightful Heir) Riker: Security team, meet me on deck seven, section twenty-five baker.

Does this annoy anyone besides me?

 

Not likely.

 

I have no problem with them using Baker as such: they could simply think that NATO sucks and WWII US Army rules.

What I do have a problem with is that they use Alpha in connection with Baker; it probably should be either Alpha/Bravo/Charlie/Delta or Able/Baker/Charlie/Dog, not a mixture of both. However, phonetic alphabet has been constantly changing, and justly so. It relies on the fact that while letters may be confused with one another over noisy connections, the initial letters of recognizable words are not. So one needs recognizable words. And it's quite possible that 24th century people would no longer recognize, say "Jig" (which stood for J before NATO came along), or "Quebec", or "Zulu", or "Tare", or "Tango"...

Thus, we could have a phonetic alphabet that reads more like Alpha, Baker, Cochrane, Delta, Frammistat, Graviton, Holodeck...

Timo Saloniemi

 

F = Firomactal
Q = Quadrotriticale
R = Ramistat
T = Tribble

 

Yes, it's dumb.

 

But consistent. As stated by the OP, Baker was already used in TOS. It would make little sense for Starfleet to flip-flop between US Army and NATO alphabets again and again and again... So if they decided to drop NATO sometime before the 2260s, it's only logical that they would stand by that decision in the 2360s as well.

Perhaps Bravo is too easily confused with Dravo (a prominent shipyards since the 22nd century) or Wravo (an important Earth colony founded mainly by Polish technocrats), so Baker is the better bet?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Yes, it annoys the shit out of me. But then, that's mainly because I used it on a daily basis for one of my old jobs (Army), still use it in my now job (Medical Records) and my Air Traffic Controller sister (and her Pilot hubby) also use it daily.

It's the perfectionist in me, perhaps. It's a worldwide standard for military, police, aviation and many other professions. Why it would be un/re-written by the 23rd century is a mystery to me. I blame the writers (who - it has been said - had no practical experience of things military etc.).

The TOS writers would never have made that mistake (EDIT: Sorry, yes, I see they did - thanks for raining on my parade, Timo). Assuming, of course, that the NATO phonetic alphabet - or more correctly, the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet - had been in common usage by them during the war (which it wasn't). This alphabet was formally adopted in 1956 although many still clung to several of the older names (for example, S for Sugar and M for Mother) for some years.

And, yes, it also bugs me when 'sixties British dramas use "sugar" and "mother" in call signs...

 

Having no military or other experience using such letter words formally, I do not pick up on the error. I have always believed that the most correct word to represent "B" is "Beta", and that is what I use in my personal vocabulary. (I believe that I picked this habit up primarily based upon the names attributed to brain waves, which are Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Theta.)

 

It's a fun little coincidence that the Greek alphabet (which goes alpha beta gamma delta and is no good in phonetically representing the Latin alphabet where the sounds are ordered differently) matches the NATO phonetic alphabet on the first and fourth letters. After all, those letters, A and D, are the ones most often accompanying a certain famous number in the Trek context... We've heard of the Enterprise-Alpha (in ST6:TUC), and IIRC of the Enterprise-Delta as well. No similar spelling-out has revealed to us whether Captain Harriman commanded the Enterprise-Beta, the Enterprise-Bravo, the Enterprise-Baker or perhaps the Enterprise-Bonkers.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Another TOS example:

(The Naked Time) Uhura: All decks, alert system B-2. Repeat: go to Alert condition Baker 2.

Never bothered me.

 

Can't say it ever bothered me on the show. Its logical that the phonetic alphabet will have evolved over the centuries.

What throws me off in real life, since I was in the military, is when other people use different words.

I'm used to Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel etc etc etc...

Not Apple Boy Cat Dog Exit Frank Grape Hospital etc etc etc...

Not a big issue, but it does throw me off from time to time.

 

In the silly abramverse, they probably changed it to "Bingo",

 

This thread reminds me of Hot Shots (From Wiki):
In the 1991 film Hot Shots! , the alphabet is parodied in such phrases as "Yankee Doodle Floppy Disk, this is Foxtrot Zulu Milkshake," "Alpha Velveeta Knuckle Underwear, you are cleared for take-off," and "Sphincter Mucus Layer Ringworm, roger."

And yes, to answer the OP's question, it bothered me.

 

Nope. I can honestly say my soul has remained more or less at peace.

 

^ Did massive quantities of whiskey have anything to do with that?


As for me, never really noticed it, but i am sure that if i had served in the military it would have annoyed the shit out of me.

 

Nah never bothered me in the slightest. I grew up watching old WWII movies and heard 'Baker' alot in monster and police shows/movies.

I got used to it and then just accepted it.

 

Do remember that Roddenberry was a WWII vet. He was used to JANPA instead, not the later NATO system.

 

It's bothersome. They seem to freely alternate between the old system, the NATO alphabet and, for unknowable reasons, the Greek alphabet. Maybe the latter is to increase the cryptological difficulties, by including a whole other set of symbols in ridiculously long codes that captains are implied to be able to memorize.

 

It's debatable whether any of the "epsilons" or "sierras" in Picard's code strings are supposed to be examples of phonetic alphabet. They are more likely to be entire codewords rather than mere letters, considering that the strings contain other words that aren't from any known phonetic alphabet, and also words that duplicate letters ("echo" is heard as well as "epsilon"). Picard shouldn't have any reason to "clarify his pronunciation" to the computer, because the code strings apparently involve voice recognition as well. "Clarification" via phonetic alphabet would actually defeat the purpose of that feature!

Apart from those strings, we only ever seem to hear two Greek letters used for phonetic alphabet: Alpha for A and Delta for D when identifying the two respective Enterprises. And as said, that's a feature that the Greek alphabet and the NATO phonetic alphabet conveniently share.

Timo Saloniemi