Mayday， not May Day

Terynn Boulton

導讀：5月1日是May Day，但換一種拼寫，成為Mayday，就是國際通用的緊急求救信號。

In 1923， a senior radio officer， Frederick Stanley Mockford， at Croydon Airport in London， England was asked to think of one word that would be easy to understand for all pilots and ground staff in the event of an emergency.

A problem had arisen as voice radio communication slowly became more common. An equivalent to the Morse code SOS distress signal was needed. Obviously a word like “help” wasnt a good choice for English speakers because it could be used in normal conversations where no one was in distress.

At the time Mockford was considering the request， much of the traffic he was dealing with was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris， France. With both the French and English languages in mind， he came up with the somewhat unique word “Mayday”， the English spelling of the French pronunciation of the word “maider” which means “help me”.

Four years later， in 1927， the International Radiotelegraph Convention of Washington made “Mayday” the official voice distress call used only to communicate the most serious level of distress， such as with life-threatening emergencies.

When using Mayday in a distress call， it is traditional to repeat it three times in a row， “Mayday， Mayday， Mayday”. This is to make sure it is easily distinguishable from a message about a Mayday call and from any similar sounding phrases in noisy conditions.

In situations where a boat needs help， a distress call of “pan-pan” can be used instead. It means you need aid， but its not an emergency. Like Mayday， pan-pan is the English spelling of a French word， in this case “panne”， which means “broken/failure/breakdown”. Also， as with Mayday， one should state it three times： “pan-pan pan-pan pan-pan”， followed by which station（s） you are addressing and your last known location， nature of your emergency， etc.

If there is no reply to a Mayday or pan-pan call by the Coast Guard or other emergency agency， and a couple minutes have passed since the last call， some other radio source， such as another ship or plane that received the call， should repeat the Mayday call until a reply is received.

Vocabulary

equivalent adj. 相等的

distress signal n. 求救信號

unique adj. 獨特的

distinguishable adj. 可辨別的

相關鏈接：Mayday最初是飛行類的求救信號，和法語詞匯“救救我”的發音十分相近。在1925—1930年間開始廣泛使用。SOS是國際無線電報公約組織于1908年確定的國際通用海難求救信號，源于摩斯密碼“ ...---...”（三個圓點，三個破折號，然后再加三個圓點）。