L in Morse code

To write Morse code, use a period for each dot and a hyphen for each dash, keep the marks of one letter together, leave a space between letters and put a slash between words. For L that means a dot, a dash and two dots, .-.. with nothing in between.

• Say it:

  di-dah-di-dit, with the weight on the second beat.

• Tap it:

  a quick tap, a long press, then two quick taps.

• Flash it:

  short, long, short, short.

• Check it:

  the dash sits second, never first or third.

At 18 WPM each dot lasts 66.7 ms and the dash 200 ms. Three of L's four marks are dots, but the dash still fills a third of the letter: 3 of its 9 units.

In a memory phrase each light syllable is a dot and each stressed one a dash. “A LIGHT is lit” puts its one stress on the second syllable, exactly where L has its dash. “Los AN-ge-les” and “a LA-dy-bug” follow the same pattern.

Douglas Harder's written mnemonic is the word else: the short e, s and e are dots and the tall l is the dash, in the right order. Say the phrase while the code plays and the stress should land on the long tone.

More memory phrases

• F:

  L backward, ..-. with the dash in third place.

• R:

  one dot shorter, so .-. ends a beat early.

• Y:

  the dots and dashes swapped, so -.-- is long, short, long, long.

• The ampersand:

  one dot added, and .-... is also the ITU's wait signal.

F is the pair learners mix up most, because both letters hold the same four marks. Listen for the dash: after one dot it is L, after two dots it is F. The Sound-alike drill trains exactly this kind of pair.

HELLO holds L twice, back to back with a 3-unit gap between them: .... . .-.. .-.. --- is the whole word, 49 units or about 3.3 seconds at 18 WPM. The Hello page plays it slowly so you can hear both Ls.

LOVE starts with L: .-.. --- ...- . spells it out, and “I love you” is on its own page, I love you. The number 143 is not Morse code but a shorthand for the same words, counting their letters, 1, 4 and 3.

For anything longer, the Morse code translator writes and plays it for you, and the alphabet chart shows L beside every other letter.

The code used on US landline telegraphs in the 1800s, American Morse, had no dots in its L at all. It sent L as one long dash, held longer than an ordinary dash; only the numeral 0 used a longer one.

In that code the dot, dash, dot, dot pattern belonged to X. A telegrapher trained on American Morse who heard an International L would have written X, which in International Morse is dash, dot, dot, dash.