{"id":154,"date":"2015-11-30T11:22:13","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T18:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/?p=154"},"modified":"2020-02-15T20:35:25","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T03:35:25","slug":"alternatives-to-sos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/2015\/11\/30\/alternatives-to-sos\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternatives to SOS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was re-reading my article about the <a href=\"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/2015\/11\/20\/word-of-the-year-the-winner-is\/\" target=\"_blank\">2015 Word of the Year<\/a> recently, and came to the section about Morse code.<\/p>\n<p>As that article states, the international <em>prosign<\/em> for a distress call is \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022. Without gaps between letters, this sequence of dots and dashes can mean \u201cSOS\u201d, \u201cVTB\u201d, \u201cIJS\u201d, \u201cVGI\u201d and \u201cSMB\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSOS\u201d was the interpretation that was adopted, and the meanings attributed to the letters are actually <em>backronyms<\/em> (Backronyms are explained about half way down the article at <a href=\"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/ThePedant\/2015\/11\/04\/aimas-clue-abbreviations\/\" target=\"_blank\">this link<\/a>). \u201cSave our Souls\u201d is the most popular one, although \u201cSave our Ship\u201d and \u201cStop Other Signals\u201d are not unknown.<\/p>\n<p>This got me thinking about backronyms for the other interpretations of \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022.<\/p>\n<p>With the caveat that I\u2019m in no way belittling the plight of people in distress, or disrespecting the memory of those who have perished, here are some possible backronyms for those other interpretations.<\/p>\n<h3>VTB<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Very Troubled Boat<\/li>\n<li>Vital Transportation Broken<\/li>\n<li>Viscerally Torn Boat<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>IJS<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>I Just Sank<\/li>\n<li>Idiots Junked Ship<\/li>\n<li>In Jaws of Sea<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>VGI<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Very Grave Incident<\/li>\n<li>Vicious Gigantic Iceberg<\/li>\n<li>Violent Gyration Imminent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>SMB<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Somebody Mayday Blublublublublub\u2026<\/li>\n<li>Ship Mangled Bottom<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Perhaps these alternatives explain why \u201cSave Our Souls\u201d was adopted!<\/p>\n<h2>Your Turn<\/h2>\n<p>Do you have any suggestions for the possible meanings of \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 in its various letters?<\/p>\n<p>Irreverent is okay; offensive is not.<\/p>\n<p>Let me know by leaving a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was re-reading my article about the 2015 Word of the Year recently, and came to the section about Morse code. As that article states, the international prosign for a distress call is \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022. Without gaps between letters, this sequence of dots and dashes can mean \u201cSOS\u201d, \u201cVTB\u201d, \u201cIJS\u201d, \u201cVGI\u201d and \u201cSMB\u201d&#8230;. <a href=\"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/2015\/11\/30\/alternatives-to-sos\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[667],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fake","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1574,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}