Morse code is made up of dots and dashes. How did telegraph operators keep from losing track of where one letter ended and another began?

Question

In the movies, morse code comes through so fast it’s hard to tell a dot from a dash. Hoe did they keep from getting lost?

In: 1001

Answer 1

I’m no expert on Morse code, and several others have given far more detailed information than I can, but I will add that from watching a British reality show in which contestants were put through Ww2 SOE (counterintelligence/espionage/sabotage) training, one of the tasks was learn how to transmit and receive Morse code messages. The show mentioned that mistakes were pretty common, but could usually be corrected via common sense. Just like in modern day texting conversations, missing he “t” in “the” is usually a pretty simple and easy to override mistake.