SOS
At this very moment, something is happening in this house that hasn’t happened since we moved in. You guessed it, the refrigerator is being cleaned. Right now, I would be helping Kay with that task, but this is when I always spend my time with you.
The sad thing is, I’m the one who suggested to Kay that the refrigerator needed looked into. It just didn’t smell right, and that’s what I told her. I’ll never forget what she said. -- “Yeah? Well, you need to look into that.”
She missed the whole point. Fortunately, today she noticed the smell herself. My senses are much more acute that hers. Then, the girl asked me to help her clean the refrigerator. That’s when I mentioned my article. My deadline is upon me. So, I told Kay to get started and I’d help her when I’m finished.
I wasn’t lying about my deadline. It’s creeping up on me, all right, and if I don’t start now, I may forget my topic. It happens. But, now I’m going to tell you some eerie fascinating stuff. – Beg pardon? “Eerie Fascinating?” Oh, my big brother Dennis and I here the description while listening to a recorded comedy routine delivered by the funniest person God ever introduced to the planet. Jonathon Winters.
Winters was impersonating an old school principal who was about to introduce the high school Homecoming Queen. The man said, “And now (pause) how? And, now (pause) where? And now it’s time to introduce the Homecoming Queen – Gwenelda Thurmer!” Winters described the principal’s delivery as being “eerie fascinating”. Dennis and I are the only two people on the globe who remember that. And, I’m not sure about Dennis.
Excuse me a second. I need to take a peek to see how Kay’s doing. – Good grief! She’s doing it all wrong! She took everything out of the fridge and set it all atop the countertops. Why don’t you make a bad job worse? I didn’t say that, because she would’ve hit me with the nearest object to her. She was standing close to the gallon jar of pickles. I could probably outrun a giant jar of pickles, but why chance it?
So, where was I? -- Right. My eerie fascinating topic. It’s “SOS”. This morning I read that SOS doesn’t stand for “Save our Ship”. It stands for “S O S”. That’d be three dots, three dashes, and three more dots. I think. Originally, Marconi, the guy who invented the wireless telegraph, suggested the international “Alert!” signal be CQD. The “D” stood for Distress, but the CQ? It was designated as the “General Call”. General Call Distress? There’s no “G” in CQD. And there’s no “Q” in General Call Distress! Some said it stood for “Come Quick Distress”. It didn’t but it sure beats “General Call”.
In 1904, a group in Germany wisely suggested “SOS” be the distress call. It’s quick and easy. CQD requires a few more random dots and dashes, and after you read it, you have to remember what it stands for. SOS? It’s easy to telegraphy and you can make it sound like Save our Ships if you want.
The British didn’t care much for Germany’s idea of SOS. In 1912, the Titanic sent the CQD alert code. After 1912, Britain accepted “SOS” as did most other countries.
A telegrapher had to be the toughest job around. It’s another one of those two symbol vocabularies, so to get two symbols to translate into a language of 26 letters, You’re going to have a lot of dots and dashes for a single word. Plus, you need to remember the signals for a period, comma, question mark, numbers, Deuteronomy-- What? Did I? Well, forget the Deuteronomy. It’s a long read, anyway.
Before I completely leave the SOS topic, I’m going to tell you something that could one day save your life. If you ever get shipwrecked or “planecrashed” on the proverbial Desert Island, which is short for “Deserted Island”, you’re going to want to draw a signal in the sand. Or perhaps use rocks. Whatever. It’s imperative that you not print out “Help!” Go with “SOS”.
Everyone from almost every country knows what SOS means. But, “Help”? Non-English speakers may not catch on to the significance. And if the airplane is headed north instead of south the pilot might see the word as “dleH” and think it’s a gathering of Celtic campers. If I saved just one of you, it was worth it.
You might’ve guessed that Morse code is not used a great deal today. And “SOS” is possibly mentioned only by old teachers in high school history classes,. And, Marconi? He’s merely the answer on a history test.
Excuse me a second. – Sorry. That was more than a second. The refrigerator door was shut, but the food was still sitting out on the cabinets. I thought it necessary to ask Kay if she forgot to re-load the fridge. She explained that she kept the door opened too long, causing a safety device to turn off the fridge. She was patiently waiting for the thing to get really cold so she could put the food back. Ah. That’s what I said. “Ah.”
Right now, it seems wise that I return to the kitchen to help load the fridge. Afterwards, I’ll suggest to Kay that we take care of the freezer a week from today. Get it? Hopefully, she won’t either.
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