253 - 269 - 863 - 261 - 471 - 958 - 220 - 370 - 4 - 21 - 19 - 24

Funny title, huh.

Alright, here's its original version :

I don't expect you recognize the patterns ; let's just say they're navalⁱ signals, from back in a day when... hm.

As you no doubt know nowⁱⁱ, as per the period-relevant signalling conventions &c, the blue over yellow diagonal split's end of message, blue pierced white two, plain eight, french sex, flags being unique they're not repeated but there's a single "repeat" flag which is why there's no 444 or 222 and so on etcetera etcetera.

No ? 'Telegraphic Signals ; or Marine Vocabulary' (by Sir Home Popham, 1803)ⁱⁱⁱ is still just as unknown to you now as it was when this ordeal begun ?! I wonder how that's possible!

Anyways, here.

As you can no doubt see consulting the source material (and not your imaginary god of pantsuit), 253 is England-ish, 269 is Expect-ed-ing-ation, 261 is Ever-y-thing-where, 220 is Did, do, does, doing, done (and in that order, because did before do and does afterwards!) and so on, 370 is His (no ambiguity, 369 is Him, none of that He-im-is-er^iv etc here!), 471 is Man-men (loses the deferential in the plural, doesn't it), 863 That^v, 958 is Will-ing-ly-ness and so there we have it :

English Expectation That Everywhere Men Willingly Doing His D-U-T-Y.

by which of course I mean

England Expecting. That every man willingly did his 12 * 69³ + 56 * 69² + 46 * 69¹ + 26 * 69^0vi!

and so following in merriment.

Now on to today's topic :

His Lordship came to me on the poop^vii, and after ordering certain signals to be made, about a quarter to noon, he said, "Mr. Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet, ENGLAND CONFIDES THAT EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY" and he added "You must be quick, for I have one more to make which is for close action".

I replied, "If your Lordship will permit me to substitute 'expects' for 'confides' the signal will soon be completed, because the word 'expects' is in the vocabulary, whereas 'confides' must be spelt^viii". His Lordship replied, in haste and with seeming satisfaction, "That will do, Pasco, make it directly."

Don't you find it odd that DUTY isn't in there, and it has to be 4-21-19-24, SEVEN signals and THREE pauses for a FOUR letter word that you'd expect, perhaps, along with me, to stand as the cornerstone of the whole fucking thing, because seriously now if these fellows don't have duty in their vocabulary what the ruck are they doing there, floating atop a lice paddy bereft of womanhood's sweet embrace years at a time ?!

Abatedment's included, there's Admonishing, like that, perfective (as well as distinguishable from Admonished, which yes is also in there), they have Announce and Annoy and Desolate, Decay, Diligence (-nt, -ly), there's Disperse, Dispose an' Distinct ; but there's just no Duty, that's all. Because seriously now, how often might "ships that engage in combat" need discuss that point ?! There's Glance, Glare an' Gloomy, good enough!

Doesn't this situation oddly remind one of the whole "simplicty" debacle ?

Spot the flags

1. As counterdistinct from merely maritime flag signals, see... [↩]
2. God having meanwhile downloaded the relevant wail-fu into your brain JIT, I expect ? Because that's totallies what happens when careerwomen & the simps they tow through the world find themselves mercilessly mocked and roundly ridiculed in open waters, no ?

   But anything else wouldn't be fair!!! [↩]

3. They weren't using the 1799 book anymore because of some copyright disputes with the French. Which incidentally also explains why Nelson didn't know whatall's in there : they had just had the damned thing issued the prior month. [↩]
4. Speaking of Her : that's 366, but there's no Hers. How do you spell coverture ? [↩]
5. 862 is Than, not to be confused with. What the fuck is with these morons, seriously, would you consolidate the intrinsic weakness of an alphabetic language thusly ?!

   Actually... you would, wouldn't you. You would, we know you would, because you do. [↩]

6. Twelve times with three girls and fifty-six times with two and forty-six with one and twenty-six alone! [↩]
7. Not kidding. It's a marine term, one could go so far as to call it nautical. [↩]
8. The spelling they used employed no J, and sorted V before U. [↩]