ITAWT ITAWA PUDYE TTATT: The Secret Language of the Skies
by Deborah Fallows
Aviation has a lot of special language, like sailing or gymnastics.  Its brief, even curt efficiency and orderly templates keep planes on course and out of each other’s way.  Short. To the point. Unambiguous. No small talk to clog up the frequency. But there is one special set of aviation jargon, more alien than the concocted vocabulary of Esperanto and more bizarre than patterned wordplay of Pig Latin or Id.  This is the lexicon of waypoints, which are the road markers in the sky for directing planes on a course. (Read it here.)