Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hong kong phonetic alphabet

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Black Kite (t) (c) 02:57, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hong kong phonetic alphabet[edit]

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Contested prod. Strange article that claims that (a) Hong Kong children are unusual in learning their ABC as "A for Apple" etc rather than the grown-up ICAO spelling alphabet ("Alpha Bravo Charlie") etc; (b) the particular spelling alphabet listed in the article is the preferred one in Hong Kong (e.g N for Nose, I for Ice Cream, X for Xmas); and of course (c) this is a notable fact that deserves an encyclopaedia article. Do Hong Kong kids call Christmas "Xmas"? Are all other children taught that X is for X-Ray - are the little brutes quite rightly forced to stick to NATO conventions? There are many reasons for deletion but let's start with WP:RS and WP:N - other reasons may suggest themselves to the discerning reader. andy (talk) 23:04, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hong Kong-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 00:28, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 00:29, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
D is for Delete I can accept that this might be an element of an alphabet song that Hong Kong students have grown up on (the link is to an exercise routine that uses the lyrics), but the idea that this is a how one communicates with the millions of residents of Hong Kong, or that it's an Alpha-Baker-Charlie for this former British colony... sorry, no. If someone wants to show the existence of a well-known children's song, write an article about the song. Mandsford 03:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
C is for Comment I would hardly expect anyone to use the ICAO spelling alphabet in primary school... Hell, I remember my kindergarten teacher saying "A is for Apple" and I'm not from Hong Kong. I would be very surprised to learn that the Brits going through grammar school are forced to learn the NATO alphabet for their p's and q's. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 07:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
D for Delete indeed. The article is totally invalid since I taught my kid A IS FOR APPLE like 4 mins ago. In Australia. Holding an apple. Dengero (talk) 07:34, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks. Now we can nominate the apple article. Mandsford 20:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Poor little mite! Xe'll never learn the lingo right with that kind of parenting. Tell the little feller: A is for arvo. B is for bogan. K is for Kylie. And W is for Westie. Uncle G (talk) 23:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - And "X is for xe'll"... I know that was a typo, but I actually knew someone from Taiwan who would pronounce both "he" and "she" as "h-see", consistent with the lack of gender in pronouns in Chinese, and I can imagine spelling that as "xe". Coming soon, a pure OR article called Xe... Mandsford 13:32, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - I see that it's not just Andyjsmith who gets to be surprised with stuff that actually exists. wikt:xe#English. Uncle G (talk) 00:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - The world is stranger than we can imagine. So are wikipedia editors. BTW X is for Unknown. andy (talk) 00:59, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is just complete rubbish on its face. Dr Gloria G. Rodriguez teaches "U is for Umbrella" in Texas. Sarah Louise Arnold was teaching "K for Kite", "O for Orange", and "Q for Queen" in the See and Say series in the 1910s.
And since when did Hong Kong lack the letters 'E' and 'F'? As M. Arnold will inform you, "E" is for "Egg" and "F is for "Flag". (ISBN 9781444641318 pp. 17)
Uncle G (talk) 23:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- My daughter had an Italian friend who told us in all seriousness that her countryfolk, young and old, use the names of cities to spell out words. I would rather like that to be true. andy (talk) 23:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's verifiable, from Proudfoot & Cardo 1997, pp. 437 and Kinder & Savini 2004, pp. 227 for starters, and you can make the encyclopaedia better by citing those sources in the Italian section of telephone alphabet. The wikitext of this page has the citation templates to use. ☺
    - Proudfoot, Anna; Cardo, Francesco (1997). Modern Italian grammar: a practical guide. Routledge modern grammars. Routledge. ISBN 9780415098502.
    - Kinder, John J.; Savini, Vincenzo M. (2004). Using Italian: a guide to contemporary usage. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521485562.
  - Uncle G (talk) 00:31, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - OK, that proves that almost anything strange is probably true. andy (talk) 09:19, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge & Redirect ~~to NATO phonetic alphabet in the appropriate section under NATO phonetic alphabet#Additions in other languages~~ to Alphabet song indicating any sourced significant changes. (More appropriate once Andy pointed it out to me) Turlo Lomon (talk) 17:56, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Seriously? Merge a Chinese kindergarten song with the international alphabet used for aviation, police, military etc? Don't you think that's a tiny bit random? andy (talk) 18:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I wouldn't say random, but rather not-the-best-fit. They both discussed the same topic, just different aspects of it (military vs. kindergarten). I made changes on my !vote based on your feedback. Turlo Lomon (talk) 18:20, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.