www.alphadictionary.com

• SOS •

Pronunciation: es-o-es • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: An emergency distress signal to elicit help; a mayday.

Notes: Notice that we spell today's word without periods even though it is widely taken to be an abbreviation. Many think that it stands for "save our ship", "save our skins", or "save our souls", but it doesn't stand for anything and never has (see Word History). Since it is not an abbreviation, we think it more consistent to omit periods, even though it is pronounced letter by letter. This puts it in a class with ID, as in ID's, ID'ed, ID'ing. Mayday, from French (venir) m'aider "(come) help me", is the verbal equivalent of SOS for aircraft, ships, and other vehicles in distress.

In Play: Now that the telegraph has given way to electronic communication systems, this Morse Code signal has become passé. The word remains, however, as a synonym for distress signal: "The presidential election in Florida in the year 2000 was an SOS from the US electoral system." Its symmetry helps keep it alive despite the loss of its original function: "I just received an SOS call from Hetty; she has had enough summer camp and wants us to come get her."

Word History: Today's Good Word is composed of the letters corresponding to the Morse Code distress call: • • • – – – • • •. SOS was officially adopted as the world-wide distress signal by the International Radio Telegraph Convention July 1, 1908. It replaced CQD, from CQ, a signal simply alerting all stations on a telegraph line + D for "distress". CDQ was easily mistaken for a word. SOS was chosen because it was both easy to tap out on a telegraph key and caught a telegraphist's attention, since it consisted of nine straight characters with no intervening spaces. The other letters in Morse code contain at most three clicks and are separated by spaces.

It replaced CQD, from CQ, a signal simply alerting all stations on a telegraph line + D for "distress".

Roger that.
"CQ" was and still is used as a general 'hello' in Morsese, meaning, of course, '(I) seek you'.

That language's acknowledgment was/is a single letter R (for 'received'). When voice communication developed, Morse terms were imported intact, and when noisy conditions challenged intelligibility, the phonetic alphabet used non-homonymic words to stand for letters. R was represented by "Roger" (later trending to 'Romeo'), giving the new 'received' meaning.

Leastways, that's my theory.

Commonly used phonetic alphabet:
A -alpha
B -bravo, baker
C -charlie
D -delta
E -echo
F -foxtrot, frank
G -golf, george
H -hotel, honolulu
I -india
J -juliet, japan
K -kilo
L -lima
M -mike
N -november
O -ocean, oscar
P -papa, portugal
Q -quebec
R -roger, romeo
S -sierra, sugar
T -tango
U -uniform
V -victor
W -whiskey
X -x-ray
Y -yankee, yokohama
Z -zulu, zebra

Very interesting word, but I was especially captured by the history of the word "Mayday", which I did not know.

Very interesting word, but I was especially captured by the history of the word "Mayday", which I did not know.

Mayday/m'aider can be seen in its GWotD entry here, compleat with Perry's link to international telegraphic distress signals.

I'm not sure I know what the Good Dr. means by "three clicks" but his statement " The other letters in Morse code contain at most three clicks" would seem to allow for only 14 possible letters (2 single click letters, 4 double click letters and 8 triple click letters). Also, a check in the Wikipedia shows 12 four click letters (B for example is -...) in English.

Right bnj, Morse letters certainly contain more than that:
B, C, F, H, J, L, P, Q, V, X, Y and Z all contain four dots/dashes, numerals all contain five, and then 2-letter combos are run together, e.g. B+K (written in Roman as 'BK' with a line above it) to form a new code, transmitted as a six- click {_..._._}, meaning 'break'.

Fr. Mike, our high school biology teacher, was a ham. He had his rig in the bio lab, which was an after-hours hangout for DeMatha students, complete with an ice box, a color TV, and a German Shepherd dog named Randolph (they both loved Limberger cheese, and there's something really funky about a dog who's just eaten Limberger coming up and breathing in your face).

Anyway, Fr. Mike operated on the 6-meter band, near TV Channel 2. His call-sign was K3UFS, and once in a while a local TV viewer might hear him identify himself as "Kilo Three Unidentified Flying Saucer." I'm told it made for some interesting phone calls.

Phonetic alphabits can be a most creative outlet. At a ham radio "field day" once upon a time we were using the call of K3NGI, or 'Kilo Three Naughty Girls Invited'

In addition to too little info on the number of "clicks" in the Morse alphabet, I couldn't find any information on what "CQ" stood for--if it stood for anything. Does anyone know?

In addition to too little info on the number of "clicks" in the Morse alphabet, I couldn't find any information on what "CQ" stood for--if it stood for anything. Does anyone know?

Doc- see above, my first post: "Seek you" = CQ.

Hams use it as a general call for any contact, or in the case of your telegraph line example, "Attention".

When a 'ham' fires up the rig, the first thing he/she transmits is "CQ" ("hello, anybody out there?").

No truth to the rumour that Pink Floyd considered CQ for a song title.

Interesting article on this on the Beeb:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7444184.stm

Interesting article on this on the Beeb

Good story. They point out that the previous distress call CQD was aught but a general 'hello' with D added, which made it sound mundane especially if the last crucial letter were not well received, hence the new form with its own character.