collision detection: What hath the Internet wrought?

April 16, 2004

What hath the Internet wrought?

For the first time in 60 years, Morse code is getting a new character -- the "@" symbol. It seems that in the age of the Internet, ham radio enthusiasts who use Morse have been trading email addresses. But the standard Morse alphabet didn't have designation for @, which meant they had to improvise. As the New York Times reports:

Until now, those ham operators had to spell out @ with two letters of code: "A," a dot followed by a dash, and "T," a dash. The resulting sound is "dit-dah-dah," which also translates to the letter "W."

To stop the madness, the International Telecommunication Union is officially approving a dot-dash string to represent @: dit-dah-dah-dit-dah-dit. It's a combination of the letters "A" and "C", and has a unique sound; it can't be confused with any other single character.

But there's a problem ...

"The irony is that sending the word 'at' is shorter," Mr. Lindquist said.
By about half. Each dash is three times the duration of a dot, and within a single character, the space between sounds is one dot long. So, the word 'at' takes nine beats, or dots; the @ symbol takes 17.

The result? Of the Morse freaks that the Times spoke to, most said they wouldn't use the new character; they prefer their grassroots tradition of spelling out "at".

It reminds me of how France is always trying to purify their language by developing officially "French" versions of English phrases and slang that creep into the popular argot. A while back, their language cops decided they should give the @ sign a French name, and proclaimed it the "arobase". But few people use these made-up official words, because that's not how language grows. It evolves organically -- a bunch of hacks and kludges duct-taped onto tradition, with no governing body approving anything at all.

Posted by Clive Thompson at April 16, 2004 01:22 PM

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Comments

A few months ago, I was working for a company doing phone support. One of the things I had to do was read new software license keys over the phone to new customers. One day, I am reading the code, something like "J7h&G%f" to a person, and she is saying the code is not valid.

"Capital J, seven, small h, ampersand, capital G, percentage sign, small f."

I keep repeating it over and over, and she keeps saying it won't work.

Finally, I am at the frustrating and insulting stage of saying, "Press the shift key and J at the same time. Press 7. Press H. Press the shift key and the number 7..." She interrupts me here to say, "That's not the ampersand. The ampersand is Shift 2."

I angrily tell her she is wrong, she should press shift 7, and quit two days later.

However, I decide to do an image search on Google a couple of days later and discover she is not the only person who thinks an at sign is called an ampersand. Check it out.

Posted by: marc at April 16, 2004 4:15 PM

European keyboards are different too - so the at symbol is over the : or something. It could be that?
---
I thought morse had been withdrawn from the official bank of communication codes a few years ago? hmm. And if you have a nokia phone SMS (text) message guess what the alert is in morse code? uh huh: 'SMS'
-julz

Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2004 12:14 AM

.. / .-- --- .-. -.- . -.. / .-- .. - .... / -- .- .-. -.-. / .- -. -.. / - .... . / .-- --- .-. ... - / .--. .- .-. - / --- ..-. / - .... . / .--- --- -... --..-- / -... . ... .. -.. . ... / - .... . / -.-. --- -- .--. .- -. -.-- / .. - ... . .-.. ..-. --..-- / .-- .- ... / -.. .. -.-. - .- - .. -. --. / ..... ----- / -.-. .... .- .-. .- -.-. - . .-. / ... - .-. .. -. --. ... / --- ...- . .-. / - .... . / .--. .... --- -. . / - --- / .--. . --- .--. .-.. . / .-- .... --- / .- .-. . / --- -. .-.. -.-- / -... .- .-. . .-.. -.-- / -.-. --- -- .--. ..- - . .-. / .-.. .. - . .-. .- - . .-.-.-

Posted by: chris at April 17, 2004 2:14 PM

Standards requiring more work are funny - kinda like the irony of "WWW"

Pronouncing "Double-U-Double-U-Double-U" takes more work than saying "World Wide Web".

Then again ... recalling and pronouncing are too different tasks.

Posted by: Jeff at April 19, 2004 8:58 PM

Jeff, www.whatever.com is pronounced ''dub-dub-dub-dot-whatever-dot-com''!

Posted by: Jonathan Korman at April 19, 2004 10:47 PM

One of the old guys at the local Linux User Group pronounces it "Whuh whuh whuh dot whatever dot com."

Posted by: marc at April 20, 2004 12:07 PM

I've taken to pronouncing it "sextuple-U", just to be different.

And I believe it was specifically the US navy that discontinued official use of Morse Code as a standard. Is there an official bank of codes like that?

Posted by: Dart at April 20, 2004 7:32 PM

Jonathon: "Dub Dub Dub" is a lot easier - I am surprised I have never ever heard of this. I feel 2 feet tall.

Posted by: Jeff at April 25, 2004 1:12 AM

The word arobase is actually not quite made up, and has a long history, not only in France:

http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/whereat.htm

Posted by: Stephane at April 26, 2004 7:10 PM

2 thoughts

1. I find and would think (although am often wrong in this sort of generalizing)others would find W3 or w3 or Wx3 would be a favorite.

2. The French stink anyhow, so who cares

Posted by: Jim at May 4, 2004 12:56 PM

Stephane, thanks for the link! That's really interesting to know.

Jim, heh, I like "Wx3".

Posted by: Clive at May 4, 2004 7:46 PM