Does anyone out there know the background history and meaning of the 3 letter acronym SOS, as it relates to a call for help and/or distress signal?
It’s just an easily recognizable pattern in Morse Code:
dot-dot-dot
dash-dash-dash
dot-dot-dot
Unmistakable if the signal is weak or broken.
I understood it was choosen to represent either “Save Our Souls” or “Save our Ship”.
Cant remeber where I got that so im open to correction. I remeber that there were also a number of alternatives in use but that in the interest of unity SOS was chosen as universal
After 100 years of signalling distress at sea, the Morse
code warning SOS is being replaced by a satellite system.
The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System can
pinpoint the location of any vessel on the high seas within
200 yards. Dots and dashes were first used for a marine
rescue off Dover, England. But it was the Titanic disaster
of 1912 that prompted the adoption of SOS – three dots,
followed by three dashes and three more dots – as an
international distress signal.
S.O.S actually doesnt stand for anything…as was previoulsy mentioned, it was just an easily recognized pattern.
SOS doesn’t have any meaning. “Save Our Souls,” “Save Our Ship,” etc are folk etymologies, just like how people say that “fuck” means “Fornication Under Consent of King” or “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.”
SOS was chosen because it’s simple and easy to remember.
You’ve been lied to, Damhna. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just more recognizeable that “CQ”.
BTW, does CQ stand for anything?
I’ve got it set as the ringing noise on my cellphone. Who woulda thunk Nokia could come up with something like that? 
(“that” being using an international “talk to me” as a phone ringer)
The first suggestion for a distress signal was SSSDDD, but it was never accepted. The DDD part meant “cease radio traffic and listen.”
The first distress call was suggested by Marconi in 1904. It was “CQD”. The CQ just meant a general call, and the D indicates distress (I’m not sure if it actually stands for the word “distress”. Folk etymology made this stand for “Come quick, danger,” or such such hogwash.
SOS was adopted a few years later, and the two signals were used more or less interchangably for several years. The Titanic in 1912 sent both signals, IIRC.
I forgot to include the link. See “‘SOS,’ ‘CQD’ and the History of Maritime Distress Calls”
To add a couple more links, a report on the April 1, 1905 adoption of radio regulations in Germany, including “SOS” as a distress signal, appeared in the May 5, 1905 issue of The Electrician: German Regulations for the Control of Spark Telegraphy.
In 1906, “SOS” was adopted as international standard at the Berlin Radiotelegraphic Conference. (The fact that as late as 1912 the Titanic sent out CQD in adddition to SOS in part reflected a resistance by the Marconi company to giving up “its” CQD in order to adopt “the German” SOS)