Posted by Ed Kiser on April 12, 2010 at 12:25:34 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: "pull left" and other puzzlements... posted by JennyB on April 12, 2010 at 03:27:49:
I looked up signalling, and found:
http://www.seascout.org/about/program/signaling.html
as this seems to illustrate the Naval Signal Flags, the two handed semaphore, and the Morse code. In the Morse section is no mention of a TAPPING convention, but it does define a single flag flapping as being used as: a flick to the sender's right is DOT and a flick to the sender's left is a DASH. This seems to be different from what is described as Nancy's method, where a quick flick is DOT and a wide sweep is a DASH. I suppose the method does not really matter, as long as it is agreed upon by both the sender and the receiver as to what is to be used to mean DOT and what means DASH. Without that agreement, one might as well be signalling to MARS.
I can see TAPPING HARD for DASH, and lightly tapping for DOT, would be meaningful, once it is understood as to how hard that tap has to be to become a DASH. This could also be a problem when the tapping is very faint anyway.
(I am thinking here of the coal miners trapped and killed in a recent accident in West Verginia very recently. If they could "tap", they could be MILES away from any listener, so such a tap would be very faint at best. But no one seemed to survive the explosion to do any tapping anyway. But if one had been able to do any tapping, the message has nothing to do with MORSE, or DOT/DASH, but simply, "Somebody is alive." That would be a very meaningful message.)
In TAPPING, "Silence" already has multiple meanings, as:
"end of character"
"end of word"
To use "silence" also as a part of DASH would make it rather ambiguous with resulting confusion as to the meaning of the message. I cannot see how any pause after a bang would make it a DASH, when it could have meant, that is the end of the character that ends with a DOT.
As for TAPPING as used by Ransome's characters, CF was in a pirate ship, held prisoner, and was communicating with Nancy. It that exchange, DF sent a "Swear" word, and then, ammended it. Oops...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky