Today, I am thankful for those who answer the call of distress.
With 7 billion people living on this Earth, we are bound to have disparate methods to communicate to one another. We do so through 6,500 diverse languages, albeit nearly 2,000 of those languages are only spoken by less than 1,000 people each. Although English is regarded as the international language, courtesy of the ubiquitous spread (invasion) of the British Empire, it ranks third among spoken languages, behind Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Arabic and Hindi languages close out the top five spoken tongues, but, interestingly, altogether these five languages are spoken by only half of the world’s participants.
Therefore, in times of desperate need, we need other means of communication, especially on the high seas where vessels from almost every nation can be found. In the 19th Century, Morse code was developed by an American Samuel Morse as a facile means of electromagnetic communication. Through its simple code of dots and dashes, messages could be transmitted on paper tape. However, this methodology for communication was not useful for ships at sea. So, the maritime community resorted to the use of visual and audio distress signals, such as bells, foghorns, semaphore flags, and signal flares. However, with the advent of radio in the late 19th Century, ships could employ wireless communication devices over specific radio frequencies to alert other ships of immediate breakdown, impending anguish, or imminent danger. As audio voice transmitters would not be invented until the 20th Century, Morse Code was resurrected among sailors and captains as a common international code for communication with those in neighborly vessels or on nearby land.
Yet, a problem remained. The maritime coterie lacked a mutually recognizable system to signal distress. In the absence of standardized regulations, the high seas was populated with a litany of Morse codes that might beckon naval danger: C.Q, C.Q.D, NC, and many others. German sailors came up with the easiest signal, SOS. In Morse Code, this was a series of 3 dots/3 dashes/3 dots in rapid succession and without interruption (…---…). So, at the first International Radiotelegraph Convention in 1906, the various distress codes were debated, with SOS coming out as the preferred candidate. On this day (July 1) in 1908, SOS became the international indicator for ‘ship in distress’ in maritime communication.
Why SOS?
Well, the code was easy to remember. The code was also distinct and not easily confused with other Morse signals. It also helped that SOS is an ambigram – it’s words read the same irrespective of being read forward or backwards, or right side up or upside down. In other words, it could be a visual cue for someone to read from a number of locations, even if drawn in the snow or on the sand.
Now, many have debated as to what SOS signifies. Is it Save Our Ship? Sure of Sinking? Send Out Succour? Stop Other Signals? Actually, it’s not of these. SOS means nothing. Those other common phrases, known as backronyms, came into existence years later to backfill the words.
For many years to follow, ships would use ‘SOS’ as a distress call, starting with the RMS Slavonia in June 1909. All aboard were rescued! The RMS Titanic (1912), RMS Lusitania (1915), and SS Andrea Doria (1956) would all use the signal in years to follow, with varying success. As audio radio transmitters came into existence, the phrase Mayday, so named for the French phrase, m’aidez (or ‘help me’), was also popularized.
But, we also still love the phrase, SOS. No wonder the Police (Message in a Bottle), Abba (SOS), and Rihanna (SOS) would all turn to it, not as a signal that one’s ship was sinking, but rather that one’s heart was.
Irrespective of your preferred mode of communication – Morse Code, radio, or song – my advice to you is to go ahead and send an SOS to the world. I hope that someone gets your message in a bottle.
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