--- title: Communication: letters, phones, radio and the internet — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Communication: letters, phones, radio and the internet», a lesson of the world course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: For most of history a long message could travel only as fast as the person or animal carrying it. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / Communication: letters, phones, radio… # Communication: letters, phones, radio and the internet Lesson 100 of the world course of Mova's primary school: 22 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/0/) — For most of history a long message could travel only as fast as the person or animal carrying it. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/1/) — A letter from Britain to Australia went by ship and took months; an answer took months more. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/2/) — People also used signals that travel by sight or sound — beacon fires on hilltops, smoke and drums — but these could carry only simple messages agreed in advance. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/3/) — In 1840 Britain began the Penny Black, the first postage stamp: the sender paid a penny in advance, whatever the distance, and sending letters became cheap for everyone. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/4/) — The electric telegraph changed everything. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/5/) — A message became pulses of electric current in a wire, written in Morse code as short and long signals — dots and dashes. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/6/) — From 1866 a cable under the Atlantic Ocean carried messages between Europe and America in minutes instead of weeks. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/7/) — In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, which turns the voice into a changing electric current and back into sound at the other end. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/8/) — Radio needs no wire at all: around 1900 Guglielmo Marconi sent messages with radio waves, which travel at the speed of light, and in 1901 he sent a signal across the Atlantic. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/9/) — Today phones, radio, television and the internet all work by the same big idea: turn a message into a signal, send the signal very fast, and turn it back into a message at the other end. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/10/) — A broadcast, like radio or TV, goes from one sender to many listeners; a phone call goes from one person to another. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/11/) — Before the telegraph, a long message could travel only as fast as a person, horse or ship could carry it. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/12/) — The Penny Black of 1840 in Britain was the first postage stamp you stick on a letter. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/13/) — The electric telegraph sent messages as pulses of electric current along wires. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/14/) — Morse code writes each letter as a pattern of short and long signals, called dots and dashes. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/15/) — In Morse code the distress signal SOS is three dots, three dashes, three dots. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/16/) — From 1866 a telegraph cable under the Atlantic Ocean joined Europe and North America. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/17/) — Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in 1876, which means he was given the official right to it as his invention. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/18/) — A telephone turns sound into a changing electric current and turns it back into sound at the other end. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/20/) — In 1901 Guglielmo Marconi sent a radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/21/) — A broadcast, such as radio or television, sends the same message from one sender to many people at once. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/22/) — Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. - ← previous: [Transport: from horses to planes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/99-transport-horses-to-planes/) - next →: [Reading the clock: hours, minutes and the two hands](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/101-reading-the-clock-hours-minutes-hands/) - ↑ back to [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/)