Mind the gap! – Why Spaces are important in Morse Code

Sooner or later, every Morse operator will have the pleasure of meeting a fellow telegrapher who sends very economic code: Without spaces.

This is not only annoying, it can lead to severe misunderstandings. Don’t believe me? Let’s have a close look at it!

A small Perl script was written to find out “dupes” among the most common words of the English and German language, when sent without spaces. There are more of them that you’d think!

Here’s the Perl script: mindthegap (3 kb)

Some of the shocking results:

German

dienst = bereit, ferne = elend, frust = erlebt, funk = element, kenia = cdu, match = goethe, minister = greifen, patient = panik, planen = anlegen, proteste = probem, rtl = ard, total = mord, venedig = einnahme, virus = stille, zahlen = geliebte

English

entire = all, midwest = greatest, pension = prison, threat = defeat, thursday = birthday, widow = pretty, women = joke

Full lists: German – English