Posted by Ed Kiser on June 22, 2004 at 00:02:49 from 64.12.116.8 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: Signals-the TAPTAP for DASH posted by John Nichols on June 21, 2004 at 23:16:15:
Morse code or Latin - it is all about communication, and understanding the meaning of what was sent.
Let us give all honour due to that noble language that was to become the mother tongue to our present day concept of English, perhaps with thanks for William of Normandy for bringing over his particular dialect of it to merge with the Anglo Saxon Germanic tongue already present to greet him. What we do today in our speech is but our own colourful slant of what those linguistic ancestors gave to us all.
When we use words like "fire" or "ignition", we pay homage to those diverse ancestors of the language.
In the Korean War of the early 1950's, there was the story of a Chaplain in the US Army that somehow found himself cut off behind enemy lines, trying to slip back to friendly hands. He came upon a Catholic Church and its Priest. Being a Priest himself, he went to that local version to ask for help. One spoke English, the other Korean, but there, on the other side of the world away from Rome, these two found a common understanding as they spoke in the language of the Caesars of so long ago.
The objective was successful communication, and that is what this thread is all about, to send and to receive with the intended meaning, to cross great distances, and create understanding.
"Let us not scorn the base rungs by which we did ascend."
Ed Kiser, South Florida