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Three dots, three dashes, three dots.
Sometimes confused with: Save our souls
The Morse distress signal, sent as one unbroken character rather than as three letters.
Signals distress and a request for immediate assistance.
Contexts: Public information, Navigation
Chosen for the rhythm rather than for any words: the pattern is symmetrical, unmistakable and easy to send by an operator in difficulty, and the expansions offered for the letters were all invented afterwards.
Contexts: Public information, Navigation
Because it is one character rather than three letters, writing it as S O S with gaps is a different signal — a distinction lost in every popular reproduction of it.
Contexts: Public information, Navigation
Three short marks, three long marks and three short marks keyed as a single continuous character with no gaps between the groups.