Happy in Morse Code

Happy takes 18 signals in Morse code: 10 dots and 8 dashes across five letters. Press Play sound above and the word lasts about 5 seconds at 14 words per minute; Flash blinks the same pattern on screen, and Save image keeps it as a picture.

It is a single word, so there is no slash and no long word gap to place. The two P's sit back to back, and the short pause between them is the only thing that keeps them from running into one long, unreadable group.

Happy has 18 signals, 10 dots and 8 dashes, and Y is the only letter that starts with a dash.

A dot lasts one unit, a dash three, and the silence inside a letter one, the timing set out in ITU-R M.1677-1. Add the 3-unit gap after each of the first four letters and the whole word runs 59 units: about 7.1 seconds at 10 WPM, 5.1 seconds at 14 WPM and 3.5 seconds at 20 WPM.

Say "di" for a dot, "dah" for a dash, and finish a letter that ends on a dot with "dit": di-di-di-dit, di-dah, di-dah-dah-dit, di-dah-dah-dit, dah-di-dah-dah. The same rhythm works by voice, knock, light or pen.

Repeat the tap version a few times with the sound playing. When the two P's sound like two separate knocks, your letter gap is right.

Happy is usually sent inside a short sentence, and every extra word brings a slash in writing and a seven-unit pause in sound.

Write "I am" rather than "I'm": the apostrophe is a six-signal character of its own (.----.), longer than the M it sits beside. For a birthday, the full phrase with a card and sound clip has its own page, Happy birthday in Morse code. Any other sentence goes into the Morse code translator.

As one five-letter word with no word gap, happy fits a 7-inch bracelet only with small beads. The strand takes 22 pieces: 10 round dot beads, 8 long dash beads and 4 spacers between the letters.

These lengths come from the same bead widths the Morse code bracelet generator uses, so it will show the layout for any wrist from 6 to 8 inches.

On a ring, mark which end to start from. Read backward, the marks spell QPPNH: H and P read the same in both directions, but A turns into N and Y into Q.

A tattoo of happy is 18 marks in one line, or a vertical strip with the Down / spine layout under Image options. Keep each dash three times the length of a dot and the gaps between letters clearly wider than the gaps inside them; the Morse code tattoo generator draws a stencil with that spacing fixed.

One wrong mark in happy produces a different word, and these three slips are the easiest to make by hand.

• H with a dot missing: ... is S, so the piece reads SAPPY.
• P without its last dot: .-- is W, and the word becomes HAWWY.
• Y ending on a dot: -.-. is C, so the word ends as HAPPC. The same guide spells Y as dash-dot-dash-dot.

Run the two P's together with no gap and you get .--..--., an eight-signal group that matches no letter at all.