I know it's called the International Phonetic Alphabet, but I'm not sure that it was originated by NATO or ICAO - I'm reasonably confident that it came from the ITU in the first place.
....and if anyone expects me to answer a call of "Germany Italy Kilowatt" they're out of luck :roll:
ICAO adopted it (the current ICAO/NATO/ITU phonetic alphabet) in 1956 and the ITU adopted it with slight differences in 1958 (sources vary a bit on the years, but most agree ICAO adopted significantly before ITU, it was before I was interested in radio so I have no firsthand knowledge). In fact, what is in use today is almost universally the ICAO/NATO version, not the "true" ITU version. The letters are the same in both but the numbers are different in the ITU as originally accepted, for example in the ITU "one" is "unaone" and "two" is "bissotwo". Many (most?) references, even from ITU sources, have dropped the odd numbers when talkking about the ITU phonetics.
Interesting on the not liking other phonetics, because before World War II as a standard and in limited use until the 1960's a different phonetic alphabet was in use by English speaking nations, for example "Italy" (or maybe it was "Italia") was in use in place of the current "India", "Denmark" in place of the current "Delta", "Yokohama" in place of "Yankee", etc, etc. It would seem this is no worse, to me, than using kcs instead of kHz.
My problem with odd or non-standard phonetics is the use of regional or colloquial words, things that a speaker of a different language would have no reason to know. That kind of defeats the purpose of the phonetics, in my opinion. But non-standard using fairly standard words I don’t see as a problem.
T!