SOS does not stand for “Save Our Ship.”
It stands for “Squirrels on Sale.” Well, that would make almost as much sense.
SOS stands for 911.
911 stands for SOS.
Both mean “Help!”
SOS was an international call for help adopted in 1908, in a time when radio messages were delivered voicelessly via Morse Code, a series of long and short clicks known as dashes and dots.
The previous distress signal was CQD, which posed some inherent problems because folk etymologists at the time couldn’t come up with a snarky phrase to claim it was based on. Or maybe there were some real reasons that the International Radio
Bill Brohaugh
7S
Telegraph Convention wanted to change the signal. Any way you look at it, it’s not like the members of that Convention were sitting around trying to come up with catchy phrases in Morse Code to entertain each other. Can you imagine: “How about ‘La Bamba’? When you tap the name out in Morse Code, it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.”
“Wait! No! I got it. SOS. It could stand for ‘Save Our Ship’ or ‘Save Our Souls’ or ‘Scrub Our Sink’ when we sell the name to the scouring pad manufacturer or ‘Stop Other Signals’ or . . .”
“Or ‘Port Out, Starboard Home’!”
No. The sequence was used because it was simple to remember, simple to tap out in urgent situations, simple to understand on the receiving end: three dots, three dashes, then three more dots. In Morse Code, that sequence coincidentally spells out SOS. Just like the numbers 911, they are symbolic of nothing, duplicative of nothing, but meaning everything to the people using it. Meaning everything, except, of course, “Squirrels on Sale.”