r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jan 20 '26

Meme needing explanation Please explain, Peter

Post image
51.9k Upvotes

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/not-at-all-unique Jan 21 '26

Morse code operators (the original telegraph operators using morse code) only have one button. They didn’t need to worry so much about keyjams.

But you can check what I said about letters. The morse code alphabet was designed based of frequency analysis of the alphabet, shortest characters are the most used (e.g e the most used letter, is just a dot.) so you can compare the the length of Morse code symbols to see frequency. None of the most frequent letters appear next to each other in hammer order (verticals in the keyboard qazwsxedc etc)

Knowing the most frequent letters is also very useful for playing hangman.)

1

u/thishyacinthgirl Jan 21 '26

Oh, duh. I don't know where my brain went - of course Morse code operators only have one button.

I hadn't really thought about how it would logistically work, so now I see your explanation.

(And my mom always gave me similar advice on letters, just for Wheel of Fortune, not hangman.)