Morse code thus determines the dot length. It is common to assume that a word is 5 characters long. There are two common typical words: "PARIS" and "CODEX". PARIS mimics a word rate that is typical of natural language words and reflects the benefits of Morse code's shorter code durations for common characters such as "e" and "t". CODEX offers a word rate that is typical of 5-letter code groups (sequences of random letters). Using the word PARIS as a standard, the number of dot units is 50 and a simple calculation shows that the dot length at 20 words per minute
Hog-Morse Hog-Morse Hog-Morse was the tendency of inexperienced telegraph operators to make errors when sending or receiving in Morse code. It is so called after one example, "home" () becoming "hog" (), which is just a subtle error in timing. The term was current in the United States in the period when American Morse code was in use. The American code was a little different to the International Morse Code currently in use. With the American code it is easier to make timing errors of this sort because there were several more symbol timings than there are in the international code.