Why do ships and aircraft in trouble use "mayday"as their call for help?

Question

Copy and Paste has the exact answer I have.

Answer 1

It originates from the French distress call used by pilots - m'aidez - which means ''help me''. It was picked up and Anglicised and became the standard international distress call.

Answer 2

The Mayday; given three times Mayday-Mayday-Mayday each send is a long time honored signal for distress, derived from the French venez m'aider, meaning "come [to] help me."[1] When the "venez" is dropped and the remaining words are pronounced in English, you get "mayday",

Much like "Roger" is a word for acknowledgement in radio communications, "Mayday" is a worldwide word used by Sailors and Airmen. It is americanized since All airports use english as a prime language. It is also a word that is easily recognizable and not easily confused with others.

Answer 3

The use of the word, "Mayday" to call for help when ships and aircraft are in trouble -- By some reckoning, this comes from the French word m'aidez -- meaning “help me” -- and is pronounced “mayday.” An alternate version is that May first is May day, a day when the great goddess takes over from the god (for the next six months), and thus calling "mayday" is to appeal for help from the goddess.-

Answer 4

This is what I found:~) Har, Har, Har
Avast, me hearties!
The "mayday" call
Mayday is simply the Anglicization of the French phrase "(venez)m'aider" i.e. "(come) help me".
Note that the above is m'aider and not m'aidez. The difference between
the two is that "aider" is the infinitve form (to help) and "aidez" is
the 2nd person plural form of the present tense as in -

Vous m'aidez [you help me / you are helping me / you do help me]

"Vous m'aidez" is just a statement and not the imperative or commanding
tone. The imperative would be "aidez-moi" (help me).

So finally MAYDAY is derived from the french "m'aider" which itself is
only a part of the entire "venez m'aider". The "m'aidez" does not come
into the picture.


Apologies for dragging this on for a bit too long. i hope the following
question makes up for it.
This cannot be a reflexive verb
"Help me" has to be just aidez-moi
In fact the negative would be 'ne m'aidez pas'.
s'aider, the reflexive verb would be to help oneself. That cannot be used in this context.
the m'aidez funda sounds cute but is probably not true as the french
equivalent of "help me" would be "aidez moi" and not "m'aidez". does
anybody have any other explanation for MAYDAY?

I believe m'aidez would be the imperative (reflexive?) as in
> > (vous) m'aidez! - (you) help me
or
vous vous aidez - help yourself
I believe SOS in morse is ... --- ... ( dit-dit-dit dah-dah-dah
dit-dit-dit) and not the other way round. and mayday does come from
m'aidez.
rgds,
nisha.

Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:


Right
Also, SOS was not just chosen b'cos it means "Save Our Souls". It is the simplest and most repetitive combination of morse code - --- ... ad infinitum.
So even an absolute newbie / untrained guy (last man on board asinking ship) can easily keep sending this msg.
The distress call comes from the french "m'aidez" which means 'help'

Answer 5

well, I guess we do have something to thank the French for.....as they are the inventors of this word...the real word being venez m'aider-which means "come help". Of course we who speak english take shortcuts....we ended up dropping the venez...and ta-da! m'ader...is short for mayday!

Answer 6

It is a distress call that is easily understood by all pilots/sailors and ground staff in an emergency.

Answer 7

Maybe because they are in trouble and it's not their day.

Seriously, I'll learn from this

thanks LadyG