Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Airspace Structure; Chart Or Publication; Procedure; Manuals; Human Factors
We departed Runway 36C in MEM via the GOETZ TWO departure (we believe this to be pronounced 'GOATS' which lead to confusion.) Shortly after contacting Departure; I believe between JAAXX and AYERR; we were cleared 'direct 'GATTS' and resume the departure.' With this clearance we selected GHATS from the legs page and executed. Our [original] Legs page showed GOETZ-BNA-SWAPP-GHATS. Being on Autopilot in FMS mode; the aircraft made a slight left turn and proceeded to GHATS which was just past BNA on J42. In the moments after this occurred something didn't sit well with me. I mentioned to the Captain; 'how can we 'resume the departure' from a fix that is past the last fix on the departure?' I queried the Controller by asking if he had cleared us to 'G.H.A.T.S.' to which he said 'no; it's G.O.E.T.Z' and we pronounce it as 'Gats' here.' We said that we interpreted that as 'Goats'; not 'Gats' but would proceed there now anyway. He didn't seem to mind and then we got the hand off to Memphis Center and the flight continued normally. I believe that GOETZ is sounded out as 'Goats'. The Controller told us to go to 'Gats' (like Bats or Hats only with a G). I am not sure he knew that just past BNA we had an intersection called GHATS; also sounded out as 'Gats.' This seems wrong to us but either way having two intersections close to each other on our flight (GOETZ and GHATS) caused confusion and caused us to proceed to a fix that the controller didn't intend for us to proceed to. We noticed this before ATC said anything and we queried the Controller who seemed to not have noticed what we were doing just yet (The two courses didn't deviate from each other much.)
On initial climb out via the GOETZ RNAV SID from MEM; the flight crew of a CRJ-700 was cleared direct to GOETZ (pronounced 'gats' by the Controller) and to resume the departure. The flight crew (believing GOETZ should be pronounced 'goats') instead selected direct to GHATZ; a downline waypoint on their cleared route. Only the reporter's recollection of the controller's phrase '...resume the departure' alerted them to the error.