http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneKnowsMorse



And the guy hammering on the roof calls me a paranoid little weirdo. In Morse code." Emo Phillips "Friday afternoon, I'm walking home from school and I'm watching some men build a new house.And the guy hammering on the roof calls me a paranoid little weirdo. In Morse code."

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The usual communication devices are unsuitable, unavailable, broken or under surveillance. What can a smart hero do?

Morse code, of course! Make a noise, flash a light, or grab something convenient and start maniacally flipping it on and off.

Naturally, the message's recipient knows Morse code, too, but any villains in the vicinity will fail to penetrate this cleverness. Not only that, but sometimes the recipient will figure out the missing bits they lost while figuring it was actually Morse.

If the viewer happens to know Morse Code, it would be noticed that almost always the actor is just tapping randomly. If the recipient is rattling off the message almost as fast as one can read, it's fake Morse code. The fastest straight-key operators can send at 35 words per minute, and decode in their head at up to 40 words per minute. It's unlikely that someone with just basic training in Morse code can even send at more than 10 words per minute.

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In another example of research failure or maybe Acceptable Breaks from Reality, movies and TV usually show the Morse operators visibly tapping the key. Even a basic Morse class teaches you to grasp the sides of the key button with thumb and middle finger and index finger on top, and work the key from your wrist. But that's much less visual.

Incidentally, Morse Code is officially obsolete for radio communications: In 1999, it was retired as the international standard, and in 2007, the FCC dropped requirements for Morse proficiency for amateur radio operators. It hasn't gone away completely, however. Morse is still in semi-official use by most navies with signal lamps, and by amateurs: Propogation beacons used to gauge atmospheric conditions and estimate their current effective transmission range identify themselves by a two-letter callsign in Morse, for example, and it's traditional (and in some places was once required) for a repeater to send its station callsign in Morse at regular intervals. A surprising number of particularly dedicated old-school hams are still using it to talk to each other, as well.

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By the way, if you're in trouble, you can always send the most commonly-known message in Morse Code: 3 dots, 3 dashes, 3 dots (S.O.S.). Though SOS works differently from most Morse transmissions. There should be no spaces between letters, and it should be repeated in a continuous SOSOSO pattern.

A similarly recognizable one is SMS (3 dots, 2 dashes, 3 dots), which is used as a ringtone on many Nokia mobile phones to indicate an incoming text.

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In the Dan Dare story "Prisoners of Space", senior cadet Steve Valiant send a Morse message by tapping a pencil on a desk in front of him, telling Dan to refuse the demands the Mekon has made for his safe release. At the same time, Steve pretends to crack up and beg Dan to rescue him. Why do the have Morse in the future? Hank Hogan gets the real message and comments that he finally knows why they made him learn it.

In the Dick Tracy Flattop story, Tracy is held by the criminal in a boarding house and learns that there is a female army officer on the floor below learning Morse code. Hoping that she's learned enough, Tracy decides to play a piano and stomp on the floor as if in time to the music, but actually a call for help in Morse code. Fortunately, the woman understands the message and calls the police. When Tracy's partner, Pat Patton, learns that the radio in Flattop's room reacts to a light bulb on his floor being disconnected, he uses it to send a return message to Tracy that help is on the way.

There was a FoxTrot comic where Jason entered a talent show by tap dancing. He said that they wouldn't let him do it because one of the judges knew morse code. If you decode his tap dancing, it spells out "SOME DAY I WILL RULE YOU ALL".

Modesty Blaise: In "The Hanging Judge", a kidnapped nurse uses her fingers to tap out her location on the video of her her kidnapper sends to her parents. Modesty and Willie are able to decode her message and stage a rescue mission. However, it takes them several days of studying the video before they realise she is sending a message and that the tapping is not just a nervous tic.

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In Minuscule Valley Of The Lost Ants sequel movie we learn that Morse code is how ants communicate. Across continents.

In The Rescuers Down Under, after Cody is kidnapped by McLeach, the mouse Cody rescued earlier meets up with a friend in a secret outpost, who sends a Morse Code telegram across the Pacific that eventually reaches the Rescue Aid Society in the States.

Starship Troopers: Invasion. When the Alesia first catches up with the John A. Warden adrift in space, it is mentioned that the former have tried every possible means of contacting the latter, including light flash signals. When the Queen Bug has cut off all communication, one of the troopers starts firing bursts from his gun in front of a window, and Rico is able to figure out what he's signaling.

Toy Story: Babyface, one of Sid's toys in the first film, taps out "RR Come out" in morse code on a metal table leg in Sid's room to call the mutant toys out. In the beginning of Toy Story 2, Woody is frantically searching for his lost hat with the other toys helping him. Hamm communicates with a garden gnome across the street by flicking the window blinds open and closed, asking if it's in the front yard



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A novelty song from the United Kingdom in the 1960s, about a Dalek attack, started with a Morse code alert about the onslaught. The BBC didn't allow it to be broadcast, on the grounds it might confuse maritime radio users. (As the "Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide put it": "...lest fishermen and freighters believe fictional aliens were attacking England, and decide to go elsewhere...")

The track "Lucifer" on The Alan Parsons Project album Eve includes a Morse code signal of the album title (dit dit-dit-dit-dah dit), and the rhythm track follows that pattern even after the signal is faded from the mix.

The Barclay James Harvest song "Ring of Changes" starts out with the title played in Morse. Another BJH song "Nova Lepidoptera" (which has a sci-fi theme) starts out with the Morse for "UFO".

Played straight (per the usual movie and TV usage) in the doo-wopp song "The Morse Code of Love" by the Capris, later covered by Manhattan Transfer as "Baby Come Back". "dit-dot-dit-dit" makes fine doo-wopp rhythm vocals but they're not saying anything.

In "Piss", the last song of Neil Cicierega's Mouth Silence mashup album, a bit of morse code can be heard during the bridge. It translates to "Somebody once told me," the memetic opening of "All-star" by Smash Mouth which Neil used extensively in the "prequel" album Mouth Sounds and hid various samples of in Mouth Silence (as Mouth Silence was stated to exist in an alternate universe devoid of Smash Mouth).

The studio version of the Dream Theater tune "In The Name of God" has Morse code hidden during one of the instrumental breaks. Decoded, it translates to "Eat my ass and balls."

Though not intentional, the song "Fear and Loathing" by Marina & the Diamonds has the morse code for stranger at the beginning of the intro.

In the video for the Metallica song "One", the main character has lost his arms, legs, and face during a war, leaving as his sole mode of communication the act of tapping out Morse code messages with his head (appropriately enough, the messages shown in the video are "SOS, help" and "kill me").

The instrumental YYZ from Rush begins with the musicians playing the Morse code for the letters Y Y Z, the Morse Code for Pearson International Airport, the main airport for the bands hometown of Toronto.

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Morse Code is mentioned several times in Code:Realize, and seems to be a relatively common form of communication in the Steampunk setting. Lupin uses it to exchange trash-talk with some Sky Pirates in Chapter 7, and in Chapter 12 of Victor Frankenstein's route, Victor uses it to surreptitiously warn Van Helsing that he's being monitored by Twilight and coerced into being their mole .

. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors features a puzzle in which the player, as Junpei must input Morse Code with a transmitter. Justified in that he admits he doesn't know Morse Code but the code he must input is there for him on a piece of paper. Ace however says that he tried to submit a SOS signal for help, although admits that it probably won't do them any good. Also justified in that SOS (... _ _ _ ...) is an extremely well known Morse Code message. There's also a bonus for players who know Morse Code themselves. The game never clarifies what the message Junpei inputs says in Morse, but a clever player will be able to tell that is it says, 35=Z . A hint for the next puzzle.



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Subverted in Red vs. Blue. When Grif's sister first arrives, she tries sending a message this way. The characters recognize it as Morse code, but nobody knows how to translate it due to it being outdated at the time the show takes place.

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Towards the end of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, the Doctor is imprisioned in a capsule deep under the sea and can't ninja his way out of it. He starts tapping the wall for a long time until his fingers bleed and he's doing it with a missing tooth, and it turns out it is really a message to provoke an attack from Antartican submarine captains. Once one fires at him and breaks the capsule's chain, then the Doctor is able to somehow ninja his way back to America.

Averted in Homestuck, much to Serenity's annoyance. Being a firefly, she communicates solely in Morse code. She has yet to find somebody else who does. WV does seem moderately proficient in understanding her, but nobody else can. Vriska also briefly uses it during a Dream Sequence of WV's. Finally she has, and it's Roxy of all people!

In Questionable Content, resident Cloudcuckoolander Hannelore caps off Martin's telegram sexting joke by speaking Morse code here note "Sincerely, Martin" .

. Times Like This has a Morse code gag.

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The BBC started off their World War II wartime radio news broadcasts with the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, in order to symbolize the "V" for victory.

During the Vietnam War, some US POWs, downed aviators, were forced to make televised statements by their Vietnamese captors. They actually used this method to make it clear that they had been tortured and otherwise coerced into making these statements. When the Vietnamese found out, they stepped it up. The first one was some USN or USAF pilot; he began blinking in the middle of his first such appearance, claiming that the harsh studio lights were hurting his eyes! It is believed that Jeremiah Denton and John McCain (both future Senators) were the first to try this. This was referenced on the NPR radio show "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!", in the context of ads for WalMart. ("They show employees... but they're blinking funny."

Real Life subversion: The British Special Air Service reportedly provides training in Morse code for emergency backup communication, counting on the fact that proficiency in its use is no longer common knowledge.

Most everyone knows that YYZ by Rush is about Toronto Pearson International Airport, and that the opening drum / bass section is "YYZ" in Morse Code: - . - - - . - - - - . .

The city of Pittsburgh subverted this in 2009, intending to have a building light transmit P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G, but instead transmitting P-I-T-E-T-S-B-K-R-R-H.

this in 2009, intending to have a building light transmit P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G, but instead transmitting P-I-T-E-T-S-B-K-R-R-H. In the 1930s and '40s, newspaper columnist Walter Winchell had an extremely popular radio show in which he noisily tapped a telegraph key while he spoke his text into a microphone. His opening catchphrase for each edition contained a reference to "all the ships at sea". Gullible listeners were supposed to be impressed that Winchell could read his text aloud and transmit it in Morse at the same time. Actually, his telegraph transmissions were gibberish. People back then were familiar with highly-trained operators in radio and telegraph offices, who could send and listen to messages almost simultaneously and instinctively (they understood the message by listening, no need to write it down). Of course, anyone of these skilled men would register immediately the hoax.

The RMS Titanic was one of the first British ships to send the SOS distress signal, interspersed with the older CQD distress signal. The signal had been standardized since 1908, but most British radio operators still used the older CQD. The first two letters were a standard radio prefix of the time which could be translated as "All Stations", indicating a message for everybody rather than a message with a specific recipient. The D was chosen to be short for "Distress". Reportedly, the radio operator began transmitting "SOS" along with CQD in response to another sailor's joke that this might be his last chance to try it out.

Mandatory to learn in North Korea. How much the average population is fluent in it is another question entirely.

This story from Not Always Working features an autistic employee forced by an abusive boss to answer a phone call, which his disorder prevents him doing (he can't speak). The disabled employee presses the dial keys for a few minutes, then hangs up, infuriating the boss who then tries to fire him. Turns out, the caller was his brother, who a) knew Morse code in case this happened, and b) is the company CEO. The boss is promptly fired for discrimination.

from Not Always Working features an autistic employee forced by an abusive boss to answer a phone call, which his disorder prevents him doing (he can't speak). The disabled employee presses the dial keys for a few minutes, then hangs up, infuriating the boss who then tries to fire him. Turns out, the caller was his brother, who a) knew Morse code in case this happened, and b) is the company CEO. The boss is promptly fired for discrimination. This was part of the trademark logo for the golden age movie studio (RKO) Radio Pictures note They were initially referred to onscreen as "Radio Pictures" without the "RKO". which is a "radio" trasmission tower on a spinning planet Earth giving out "VVVV A(n RKO) Radio Picture VVVV" in Morse Code note Of course, some movies simply started their main soundtracks during that time. .

which is a "radio" trasmission tower on a spinning planet Earth giving out "VVVV A(n RKO) Radio Picture VVVV" in Morse Code . Although not as common as it once was, Morse Code is still used by Amateur Radio operators, particularly older ones who had to learn it to receive their license, in a form of radio communication known as CW, or Continuous Wave. In CW, the radio is either transmitting a tone or it's not, with no frequency or amplitude modulation as with other formats such as AM, FM, or Single Sideband. One benefit to CW is that the ear-splitting tone can easily be picked out through signal noise such as static or voice communications, making it ideal for long-distance communication.

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LET TVTROPES DESTROY YOUR LIFE... SUCKERS.

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