Why is "Affirm / Negative" used instead of "Yes / No"? Does anyone know why we use Affirm and Negative in RT, rather than Yes and No? I assume it's to prevent confusion with accents and other languages - but Yes and No sound very different to me!
Why do we say "TANGO" on the radio for the letter "T"? Because "T" could get garbled or misunderstood to be "B", "E", "or "V". "NO" could become "oh?", "YES" could become "us", and so on...the possible interpretations and permutations of short, monosyllabic words are many. Use a big word and it will be hard to confuse with others...