putting a "the" in the callsign

[RUDAS]

right,has anybody noticed the use of "the" in callsigns lately? Like "HEATHROW DIRECTOR THIS IS THE KLM XXXX"etc. or "ZURICH GOOD DAY,THIS IS THE EMIRATES 003".

it seems to be becoming more and more prevalent,not that i have a problem with it,but would just like to where the practise originated.I have a feeling it may have its origins amongst the Dutch,but does anyone know for sure?

[jayteeto]

It gives me a laugh for sure. Listening to ATC replies without the 'The' and then the next transmission emphasises 'THE'. Unneccessary and elitist. There has been many threads on this before.

[Carnage Matey!]

I heard a 'The British Midland xyz.....' the other day.

[RUDAS]

yeah,you hear it all over these days...in the last few days have heard 'the SpeedbirdXXX' and 'the EmiratesXXX',but perhaps linguistically it has Dutch origins?:confused:

[2FLYEU]

Hmmm....
Dunno about the origins of "the", but I 've noticed the equivalent
in Spanish on the Central American FIR CENAMER Freqs.
.... TA flights usually.

[Notso Fantastic]

Is it of any importance what style people use? Are we going to make up some extra meaning out of the practice?

[Bealzebub]

Can't see the problem with this really ?

It would seem to have a gramatical purpose when talking about one of many. For example if asked what flight you were travelling on, it would not be incorrect to say the 10:30 flight as opposed to just 10:30 flight.

If a flight is checking in and announces itself as the skylight 4546 it would seem to emphasise the flight as being one of many which may well be the case. Given that the actual number is the prime differentiator it can be argued that the use of the leading the is redundant.

Given the need to keep R/T calls to a minimum it seems a bit at variance to add a word, but beyond that I can't really see why anyone cares.

[Notso Fantastic]

Sports teams refer to themselves as 'the' Portsmouth Football team, we are 'the' basketball team, 'we are 'the' drain company come to Drainorod your drains Madam', we are 'the' A Team!, we are 'the' Inland Revenue come to do a search of your house!, we are 'the' Police...........

And 'the' problem with using 'the' is?.........

[swh]

:=


THE .... is commonly known as call sign SPANKING

Several pages of education on the term and use can he found in this thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150024&highlight=spanker)

:ok:

[A Very Civil Pilot]

Heard on London the other day:

ATC: " Was that the ABC 123 checking in?"

ABC 123: " No, just an ABC 123; there will be another one same time tomorrow."

Sorry, can't remember the actual callsign

[White Knight]

jayteeto - believe me, i've heard ATC in both THE UK and THE UAE use the word THE when they talk to THE Emirates:ok: :ok:

[fourpaddles]

This subject is almost as irritating as re-establishing contact before making a request:

"Paris, this is the wakka wakka 123"

"wakka wakka 123 this is Paris go ahead"

"Paris, the wakka wakka 123 requests climb flight level 330"

.....now that is irritating....

[ShyTorque]

It's obvious to all that you must be far more important if you call yourself "The". Not.. :yuk:

Those of us who really ARE important, are just happy anyway, because ATC call US "sir", so we don't need to say it :E

[Trislander]

This is similar to the way people address the Concorde aircraft:
Why does everyone say 'I flew on Concorde' or 'Concorde landed while I was at heathrow', etc. You don't hear people saying 'TriStar landed while I was at Luton airport' or 'We flew on 146'! It's not like there's just one of them, there were about 14 doing the rounds at one point.

But thinking about it, does it really matter? It just sounds better over the r/t if a little extravagant?

[beamer]

All a load of balls really - now of course in a different world it is always THE Arsenal.......................

[White Knight]

Who is "Wakka Wakka"?:) :) Just kidding.

I do remember hearing "the speedbird concorde 001" on LATCC, and we became "the flyer ATR 58CK". Then there was shortly "THE Midland boeing 23mx" and "the British Jetstream 581" Next call was just "Speedbird 1":E :E - Does that sound good to you BN-3????

[Max Angle]

I found myself doing it the other day, I think it just slips out sometimes. I've heard it from ATC and other aircraft but I doubt those people do it all the time, when you key the mic. a few hundred times a day it just happens I guess.

[Redstripe]

The use of 'The' before a callsign is simply poor R/T, nothing more, nothing less.

Another example (of poor R/T) in common use is the expression '... with you...' after a frequency change (as in 'Paris, Anyjet 123 with you flight level 260...'

None of us is perfect, but we are all supposed to be professional aviators. The least we can do is try to keep our R/T as concise as possible.

[RUDAS]

i have no problem with the use of "with you" or "the" ...find myself using these terms sometimes.Just curious as to the linguistic/cultural origin,since it seems more common with certain groups.Interesting replies though:ok:

[Notso Fantastic]

Seems weird to me to grumble about the use of 'the' when on all fronts we are assaulted by bad English:
Apple's, Pear's, Orange's
Brought/bought
Their, they're, there
don't do'nt
spelling beyond comprehension
total lack of capitalisation
non existent punctuation

The thread started off with this example:
right,has anybody noticed the use of "the" in callsigns lately? Like "HEATHROW DIRECTOR THIS IS THE KLM XXXX"etc. or "ZURICH GOOD DAY,THIS IS THE EMIRATES 003". it seems to be becoming more and more prevalent,not that i have a problem with it,but would just like to where the practise originated.
Now how many errors there? Shall we sort them out before criticising verbal use of 'the'?
Also:
jayteeto - believe me, i've heard ATC in both THE UK and THE UAE use the word THE when they talk to THE Emirates ........more comprehensible when you add punctuation mentally.
The best example used was from this little individual:
chemistry chemistry i`m getting it now some sly type women only go for money ect you can tell them a mile away .
Hallelujah! At least we got a full stop, but we seem to have picked up another elevated full stop in 'i'm'! But then this was from the same individual who subsequently emailed me:
oi i hope you get cancer and never see your kids ....so we mustn't expect too much from him! I tried, Lord knows I tried to point out to the nasty creep you always start sentences with capital letters, and not to forget punctuation, but I think I was wasting my time!

Let's not worry about a minor infringement of RT etiquette by using 'the' when not needed- there are BIG problems afoot!

[HOMER SIMPSONS LOVECHILD]

I'm going to start doing it just to annoy all you constipated pedants out there!
If you're not "the" flight in question what exactly are you?
While I'm at it I'll start saying "with you" and "coming down"at every opportunity
:ok:
ps Redstripe, I hope your RT is more concise than your spelling.

[Cough]

There is only I more thing more annoying than using 'The' in the callsign...Its the thread.

Let me explain. There was I flying and nothing like this used to bother me. Then I read this thread, and a few days later 'The Monarch' calls on to London, then Gatwick app, director, tower and finally ground (following us). Now it never used to bother me but 'The monarch' now had me screaming!

Perhaps I should 'Chirp' PPRuNe as having a negative effect on flight safety...;)

ps...Why on earth did he only use 'The' on first call, subsquent calls only used 'Monarch'?

[Turn It Off]

All a load of balls really - now of course in a different world it is always THE Arsenal.......................

I thought Arsenal was always prefixed with " Boring Boring ....."

:} :} :}

[Max Angle]

I'm going to start doing it just to annoy all you constipated pedants out there! Great idea, I think I might starting using "Charles" instead of "Charlie" as well.

[Dockjock]

While we're all being constipated I might as well add: Air Canada's 345.

what-EVERRR

[Smurfjet]

Oh how true DJ! I was trying to think what our version of this was, I knew we had one :cool:

[HOMER SIMPSONS LOVECHILD]

Redstripe,you're correct,none of us is perfect.
(Sorry,I just couldn't resist it-nothing personal!):rolleyes:

[Monty77]

Notso-

I recommend the book 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves', by Lynne Truss. Billed as 'The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation', it's actually a very entertaining read.

I work with guys who's first language is not English, so you can expect some serious grammatical mangling. The two that irritate me are:
"2350 coming down" having been allocated a squawk, and the worst,
"(The!)Callsign XYZ 20nm East abeam this time".

What are these people? Time Travellers?

[TIMTS]

From flying down here in the caribbean and hearing "the" used all the time I always figured it was some rasta R\T thing.

But I do fly in the Nertherlands Antilles, so that brings up the question of the dutch again. Maybe KLM picked it up down here and then proceeded to infect the rest of Europe?

Timts

[Trislander]

It annoys me though when a certain aviation monthly KEEPS ON referring to airports in the following manner:

London's Heathrow Airport and
London's Stansted Airport...

It is both shorter and less annoying to write:

London Heathrow, Stansted.

Those that are sad enough to read it (like me) will know what I mean! :8

:ok:

[SE7EN]

Anyone else out there old enough to remember Alain Delon, "Ello Parees, zis is ze Concorde". To which he receives the reply..."You are cleared to land!".
Incidentally, this was on first contact with Paris!
Oh if only life was so simple!

[Jockflyer]

I fly with a dutch captain, and he says it.

BTW, some people seem to get very hot and bothered over other users grammatical accuracy on threads. Get a life, we're not applying for jobs, just messing around on a computer, probably half pissed at midnight before going to bed.

I'm off for some milk and cookies!

[scroggs]

I work with guys who's first language is not English,

So, Monty, I'm sure you won't mind me pointing out that the possessive of "who" is "whose", and that "who's" can only mean "who is" or "who has". It's just like the confusion over "it's", really! Terrible language, this English!
;) :p

[HOMER SIMPSONS LOVECHILD]

Jockflyer,
Merely highlighting the incongruity(?) of whinging about harmless verbal grammatical foibles by the use of foibled text!
When did Hadrian's Wall become the Irony Curtain?
Let's start a thread on how irritating the phrase "get a life" is.;)

[Hobo]

To answer the original question, I think it all started in the US.

I remember in the 60's it was always "The" Clipper XXX. Then a UK long haul airline seemed to take it up in a big way when they got the 707.

[Notso Fantastic]

It's good to know there can be no serious problems in aviation if such an irrelevant and unimportant nonentity of a minor facet of RT phraseology practice generates such a serious discussion!

[Captain Airclues]

In nearly 36 years of using the 'Speedbird' callsign I have never been guilty of this. However in the past couple of weeks, after reading this thread, I have started to do it, quite unintentionally. It must be the subconscious power of PPRuNe.

The Airclues

[blueloo]

I have never heard any other airline other than BA use "THE SPEEDBIRD" - we always piss ourselves laughing (which is very unfortunate for the next person who has to fly in our seats). [It always seems to be some pompus person who says it!]
Needless to say as others have mentioned, we too become "THE XXXX" , and a a miracle ensues - THE SPEEDBIRD, suddenly changes callsign, and becomes just SPEEDBIRD!

Always fantastic for a laugh. Keep it up!

[Captain Airclues]

blueloo

I have never heard any other airline other than BA use "THE SPEEDBIRD"

If airlines other than BA were to use "THE SPEEDBIRD" then it could be very confusing for ATC. :)

Airclues

[ponshus]

Captain Airclues - I have heared it rumured that a small outfit called GSS sometimes does just that.

[Gonna]

linguistically it has Dutch origins?

Linguistically in Dutch the discussion is the same as in English. I guess we are more used to it though. On company frequency's we use 'dit is ... van de KLM 123'. I guess it slips out on ATC from time to time as well...

[el dorado]

The only time I came across this was in the Caribbean when BN-2 Islanders often made calls as "The xx-xxx". Not sure why they thought it necessary to do this. Watching too many movies I guess. I used to cringe every time I heard it.