Many believe SOS has a specific meaning, but you'd be surprised to know that the letters aren't an acronym at all. That said, what does SOS actually stand for?

you probably remember ads for “The Instructograph,” a mechanical device for learning Morse code. [Our Own Devices] has an ancient specimen of the machine and shows us how it works in the video ...

Militaries use immersion language instruction, as do diplomats and journalists, and apparently computers can now use it to teach themselves Morse code ... or two about machine learning.

Most simply, SOS is the standard Morse code distress signal, which reads like this: ". . . – - – . . ." As such, the three dots represent the letter "S," while the dashes represent the letter "O." ...