[Zelandakh]

barmar, on 2014-January-27, 19:23, said:

All these threads about dummy and/or opponents mishearing declarer's designations remind me of how they addressed this in a different, more critical field of endeavor. If you've ever wondered by airplane pilots and control towers say "niner" instead of "nine", it's because the latter sounds just like the German word "nein".

It is also why the number 5 is omitted from countdowns in the army (et al), since this could be mistaken for the word "Fire!" with unpleasant consequences.

[aguahombre]

Zelandakh, on 2014-February-25, 11:05, said:

It is also why the number 5 is omitted from countdowns in the army (et al), since this could be mistaken for the word "Fire!" with unpleasant consequences.

They found out the hard way that "fiver" didn't solve the problem.

[blackshoe]

Countdowns are one thing, but what if you are speaking phonetically and need to mention the number five? The way I learned it, you say "fife". And I never heard of omitting the number five from countdowns, but then I only spent three years in the army, and the question never came up.

[pran]

For what it is Worth:
In the Norwegian armed forces (signals) we are supposed to always precede numbers with a word that can best be translated into English as "numbersign".

And we may only use the Norwegian words for the digits zero thru nine and the digit goups 00 (spoken as "hundred") and 000 (spoken as thousand).

So transmitting the number 2300000 we say: "numbersign two three thousand hundred" (or possibly "numbersign two three hundred thousand").
But for instance using the word "twentythree" is banned.

[mycroft]

An issue when I went to India - their historical system works in groups of hundreds, not thousands (except the first); so they will write a number as 1 00 000 (one lakh) and 2 00 00 000 (two crore) - which is surprisingly difficult for someone used to American numbering to get used to (well, for someone == me, I guess).

They continue that with numbers; so it's 4 double-3 36 double-zero. That also takes some getting used to when it's listening.

[blackshoe]

Zelandakh, on 2014-February-25, 11:05, said:

It is also why the number 5 is omitted from countdowns in the army (et al), since this could be mistaken for the word "Fire!" with unpleasant consequences.

Ever see the movie "The Bedford Incident", with Richard Widmark as the CO of a US Destroyer? The USN used to use this movie as an example of how not to lead.

Widmark, to reporter: "If he fires one, I'll fire one."
ASROC operator, on the other side of the bridge: "Fire one, aye, sir!" Woosh! Oops.