Editing Morse code (section)

===Operator-led change from graphical to audible code===
In the original Morse telegraph system, the receiver's armature made a clicking noise as it moved in and out of position to mark the paper tape. Early telegraph operators soon learned that they could translate the clicks directly into dots and dashes, and write these down by hand, thus making the paper tape unnecessary. When Morse code was adapted to [[radio communication]], the dots and dashes were sent as short and long tone pulses.

Later telegraphy training found that people become more proficient at receiving Morse code when it is taught "like a language", with each code perceived as a whole "word" instead of a sequence of separate dots and dashes, such as might be shown on a page.<ref name=ARRL-Learning-Morse/>

With the advent of tones produced by radiotelegraph receivers, the operators began to vocalize a dot as ''dit'', and a dash as ''dah'', to reflect the sounds of Morse code they heard. To conform to normal sending speed, ''dits'' which are not the last element of a code became voiced as ''di''. For example, the {{nobr|letter '''{{sc|L}}'''}} ({{morse|dot|dash|dot|dot}}) is voiced as {{nowrap| ''di dah di dit''}}.<ref name=Carron-1986/><ref name=Eckersley-1985/> Morse code was sometimes facetiously known as "iddy-umpty", a ''dit'' lampooned as "iddy" and a ''dah'' as "umpty", leading to the word "[[umpteen]]".<ref name=OED-iddy-umpty/>
[[File:Morse comparison.svg|thumb|350px|{{anchor|American Morse anchor}}Comparison of historical versions of Morse code with the current standard. ''Left'':&nbsp;Later [[American Morse code]] from 1844.<ref name=Smithsonian-Report-1879/> ''Center'':&nbsp;The modified and rationalized version used by [[Friedrich Clemens Gerke|Friedrich Gerke]] on German railways. ''Right'':&nbsp;Current [[International Telecommunication Union|ITU]] standard.]]