The first edition of this code consisted of nearly 1000 words chosen by Popham from the dictionary as most useful for naval purposes. In 1803 a second part, consisting of nearly 1000 less useful words, and a third part, consisting of nearly 1000 "sentences most applicable to military or general conversation" were added. To prevent the signal numbers from becoming unduly high, derivations were grouped with their root-word, e.g. expedite, expedited, expediting, expedition, and expeditious were each expressed by No. 270, it being left for the receiver to determine the exact word by the context. Further, "In verbs, the number, person, tense and mood" had to "be applied to the sense of the sentence." When the exact word was not in the vocabulary, the one most nearly synonymous was to be adopted, but "should it be of any consequence to use a word not in the vocabulary," it could be spelt by the numerical alphabet, which was known by the numbers 1 to 25. It may be noted, as the solution of the conundrum that has puzzled many in spelling out "duty" in Nelson's celebrated signal that in this alphabet, not only are I and J treated as one letter, but V precedes U. Thus, in the preparation for that signal, when Pasco told Nelson that "confides" was not in the vocabulary, he suggested the "one nearest synonymous," namely, "expects," as this latter could be expressed by three flags in one hoist, while "confides" required 11 flags in eight hoists. "Duty," however, had to be spelt[389]. The sentiment of the signal had been sufficiently spoilt by the substitution of "expects" for "confides"; the further substitution of "best" or "utmost" would have hopelessly ruined it. When the words of the message had been chosen from the vocabulary and their corresponding numbers written down for the signalman's guidance, it remained to translate them into flags. To do this required nine flags to represent the figures 1 to 9, and one flag to represent the cipher. It was convenient to add one or two substitute flags to say "ditto," in case not more than one flag of each numeral was available, with two flags for "yes" and "no." Popham found all these flags already provided in the 1799 _Signal Book for the Ships of War_, but the thousands he expressed thus: numbers between 1000 and 2000 by a ball or pendant placed above the "hoist," or group of three flags representing the hundreds, tens, and units; and numbers above 2000 by a similar ball or pendant placed below the "hoist." This was done to avoid unduly increasing the "substitute" flags, as one set of numeral flags was often all that was available, and for the same reason such numbers as 333, 888, 2222 were omitted from the code.