Telegraph code and sentence gaps should be 5 or 7 dots long (change from earlier standard – 5 dots). The speed of sending is also referred to as words per minute, and is classically based on the 'paris' formula - as 'paris' is considered to be an average length word. See main article on Morse Code. Morse code can even be used to transmit Chinese characters. There already existed dictionaries which numbered the Chinese characters. It is simply a case of sending the numbers by Morse Code, and these numbers are then looked up in the dictionary at the receiving end. In
Morse code abbreviations head, instead of writing text on paper or into a computer file, the receiving operator copying mentally will interpret the prosign for either a mental pause, or to jot down for later reference a short word or phrase from the information being sent. "Rag chewer" is a name applied to amateur radio Morse code operators who engage in informal Morse code conversations (known as "chewing the rag") while discussing subjects such as: the weather, their location, signal quality, and their equipment. Meaningful rag chewing between fluent Morse code operators having different native languages is possible because of a common language