Same idea, different set of equipment...

[alexpgp]

Sometimes, things just sort of hit you out of the blue.

The latest example was initiated by LJ friend velvet_granat, who sent a link to the following graphic:

Indeed, one of the maddening things about deciphering Russian cursive is trying to distinguish among the letters п, т, и, and ш when they follow each other in a word (the graphic shows the word "дышишь").

As I was enjoying the amusement, the nonsense sentence

HE HISSES HIS ESSES

suddenly popped into my mind, which I do not recall having read anywhere - and a Google search supports my recollection - but which would be cumbersome to decipher in Morse code, because all of the letters E, I, S, and H are represented by "dit" sounds (keep in mind that Morse is sensed, either audibly or visibly, and not perceived symbolically the way letters are).

The result is a series of "dit" sounds where the slight pauses between letters and the slightly longer pauses between words would be of paramount importance.

Which reminds me of a parable concerning comprehension of spoken Japanese, but I really must get back to work.

Cheers...

Comments

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

During my Russian 501 classes, my instructor taught us to underline ш anytime we wrote it.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

That was the rule when I was learning Russian, too. We underscored ш characters and "overscored" т characters.

I'm not sure how helpful it was, since to the best of my knowledge, no native Russian writers do this. :)

Cheers...

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Hah! That figures. I thought my Russian instructor was just desperate to get us to stop printing.

[waflitsia.livejournal.com]

бедолага))))

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

Mmm, it's an "old school" style of writing, but it does exist. My grandmothers still write like that - underscoring the "ш" and overscoring the cursive "т". Perhaps the advent of computers is to blame for this.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Well, I have acquired an old diary kept by a Russian Imperial naval officer (which I glance at every time I start feeling smug about my language skills), and do not see any under/overscoring, so that's another data point.

Cheers...

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

And the opposite of your data point ;-)