mjb:StevieT: And what I hate is when they spell out letters, and use a word as well, e.g.
'Y' for Yankee. I'm not in America!
Yankee happens to be the code word used in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet for the letter Y, it's not an americanism (apart from the NA part of NATO).
We also use that phonetic alphabet here in New Zealand on Amateur Radio. It has been around for many years