DOTD For Wednesday, July 1, 2026

The Only Emergency This Drink Signals Is Thirst

Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Three Dots and a Dash Cocktail, inspired by the date SOS officially became the worldwide standard distress signal, July 1, 1908.

What Is SOS?

SOS is a universal distress signal, derived from Morse Code, and composed of three dots, three dashes, and three dots, like this: • • • ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ • • •

Before SOS became the world's most famous distress signal, ships used a variety of different emergency calls. This created confusion, especially as wireless communication became more common.

The idea for a universal distress signal had been discussed, but in 1905, the German government formally proposed that SOS be used. It was discussed over the next year by radio telegraphers, and was adopted globally at the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention in Berlin in November 1906. The agreement to use that signal officially took effect worldwide on July 1, 1908, & soon became the recognized standard distress signal around the world.

Why Use 3 Dots-3 Dashes-3 Dots For SOS?

The choice to use the three dots, three dashes, and three dots signal had nothing to do with a phrase in any language. Although people later invented phrases like “Save Our Ship” or “Save Our Souls” to match the letters SOS - what’s sometimes called a backronym - ironically, one of the most famous “acronyms” in history was never meant to be an acronym at all. SOS was originally chosen purely for practical engineering reasons.

The biggest reason was that the Morse code pattern for those three letters, S O S, is symmetrical, simple, & distinctive: three dots for “S”, three dashes for “O”, and three more dots for “S”. It’s a signal easy to identify and difficult to misunderstand, even when radio signals were weak or interrupted, a common problem at the beginning of the 20th century. In short, SOS was simply the clearest distress signal engineers could come up with.

In technical terms, SOS is a Morse “procedural signal“ or “prosign”, used as a start-of-message mark for transmissions requesting assistance when loss of life or catastrophic loss of property is imminent. Other prefixes are used for mechanical breakdowns, or requests for medical assistance, as well as a relayed distress signal originally sent by another station. SOS remained the maritime radio distress signal until 1999, when it was replaced by the communication protocols of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS), a worldwide system for automated emergency signal communication for ships at sea developed by the United Nations' International Maritime Organization (IMO).

SOS is still recognized as a universal standard distress signal that may be used with any signaling method. It has been used as a visual distress signal, consisting of three short/three long/three short flashes of light, such as from a survival mirror. In some cases the individual letters “S O S” have been spelled out, for example, stamped in a snowbank or formed out of logs on a beach. “S O S” being readable upside down as well as right side up (as an ambigram) is another advantage of the signal, for visual recognition.

The Deeper History That Lead To SOS

Radio telecommunication (initially known as “wireless telegraphy”) was developed in the late 1890s, and was quickly recognized as an important aid to maritime communication. Previously, seagoing vessels had adopted a variety of standardized visual and audio distress signals, using such things as semaphore flags, signal flares, bells, and foghorns. However, cooperation in standardizing radio distress signals was initially limited by national differences and rivalries between competing radio companies.

In 1903, an Italian representative at the Berlin Preliminary Conference on Wireless Telegraphy, Captain Quintino Bonomo, discussed the need for common operating procedures, including the suggestion that “ships in distress ... should send the signal SSS DDD at intervals of a few minutes”. However, procedural questions were beyond the scope of this conference, so no standard signal was adopted at the time, although Article IV of the conference’s Final Protocol stated that “Wireless telegraph stations should, unless practically impossible, give priority to calls for help received from ships at sea”.

Without international regulations, individual organizations were left to develop their practices. On January 7, 1904 the Marconi International Marine Communication Company issued “Circular 57”, which specified that, for the company’s worldwide installations, beginning February 1, 1904 “the call to be given by ships in distress or in any way requiring assistance shall be C.Q.D.“ An alternative proposal, put forward in 1906 by the U.S. Navy, suggested that the International Code of Signals flag signals should be adopted for radio use, including “NC” which stood for “In distress; want immediate assistance”.

Germany was the first country to adopt the SOS distress signal, which it called the Notzeichen signal, as one of three Morse code sequences included in national radio regulations which became effective on April 1, 1905. In 1906, the first International Radiotelegraph Convention met in Berlin, which produced an agreement signed on November 3, 1906 that became effective on July 1, 1908. The convention adopted an extensive collection of Service Regulations, including Article XVI, which read: “Ships in distress shall use the following signal: • • • ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ • • •, repeated at brief intervals”.

In both the April 1, 1905 German law and the 1906 international regulations, the distress signal is specified as a continuous Morse code sequence of three dots / three dashes / three dots, with no mention of any alphabetic equivalents. However there was a convention in International Morse whereby three dots comprise the letter “S”, and three dashes the letter “O”, and it soon became common to informally refer to the distress signal as “S O S”, with the January 12, 1907 Electrical World publication stating that “Vessels in distress use the special signal, SOS, repeated at short intervals.” In American Morse code, which was used by many coastal ships in the United States through the first part of the twentieth century, three dashes stood for the numeral “5”, so in a few cases the distress signal was informally referred to as “S 5 S”.

The first ships that have been reported to have transmitted an SOS distress call were the Cunard ocean liner RMS Slavonia on June 10, 1909 while sailing the Azores, and the steamer SS Arapahoe on August 11, 1909 while off the North Carolina coast. The signal of the Arapahoe was received by the United Wireless Telegraph Company station at Hatteras, North Carolina, and forwarded to the steamer company’s offices. However, there was some resistance among Marconi operators to adopting the new signal, and as late as the April 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, the ship’s Marconi operators intermixed CQD and SOS distress calls. In the interests of consistency and maritime safety, the use of CQD appears to have died out thereafter.

Later developments

Additional warning and distress signals followed the introduction of SOS. On 20 January 1914, the London International Convention on Safety of Life at Sea adopted as the “Safety Signal” the Morse code sequence “TTT” ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ (three “T’s” ( ▄▄▄ ))—spaced normally as three letters so as not to be confused with the three dashes of the letter O( ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ )—and used for messages to ships “involving safety of navigation and being of an urgent character” but short of an emergency.

“Mayday” voice code

With the development of audio radio transmitters, there was a need for a spoken distress phrase, and “Mayday“ (from French m’aider “help me”) was adopted by the 1927 International Radio Convention as the spoken equivalent of SOS. For “TTT”, the equivalent spoken signal is “Sécurité“ (from French sécurité or “safety”) for navigational safety, while “Pan-pan“ (from French panne “breakdown”; Morse “XXX”) signals an urgent but not immediately dangerous situation.

World War II suffix codes

During World War II, additional codes were employed to give users immediate details about attacks by enemy vessels, especially during the Battle of the Atlantic. The signal “SSS” signaled attacked by submarines, while “RRR” warned of an attack by a surface raider, “QQQ” warned of an unknown raider (usually an auxiliary cruiser), and “AAA” indicated an attack by aircraft. They were usually sent in conjunction with the SOS distress signal.

If you’re ready for a drink, there’s no need to signal for it. We’ll teach you how to make today’s Drink Of The Day, a Three Dots and a Dash Cocktail, below!

Ingredients

Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink: