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Fun fact: The one morse code that most people probably know, SOS, is not actually sent as three letters S-O-S but as one distinct code. I.e. it's more akin to
by steve1977 3mo ago
Fun fact: The one morse code that most people probably know, SOS, is not actually sent as three letters S-O-S but as one distinct code.
I.e. it's more akin to something like a linefeed control character that could also be represented as \n.
It also had no meaning initally, so meanings like "save our souls" are backronyms (it's originally a German signal anyway).
- amenhotep 3mo agoHuh! I'd always accepted the backronym without even thinking about it, but it makes so much more sense as arbitrary letters associated with sequences that are very easy to remember and distinguish than as a real weird acronym that just happens to have that property. You have reorganised my world in a slightly more reasonable way.
- steve1977 3mo agoInterestingly there were competing distress signals at the time, but I guess SOS won because of its usefulness outside of morse code. As you mentioned, it's easy to remember, the letters are distinguishable and it also works upside down when written.
- howard941 3mo agoCQD lost out
- nhecker 3mo agoAs did OOO.
- austinallegro 3mo agoOOO = Out Of Office
- linzhangrun 3mo agoTitanic sent CQD first, then tried the new SOS