MAYDAY

Did you ever wonder why ships in peril at sea and airplane pilots going down say "Mayday!" and not SOS or some other indication of trouble?   Me too!.

It seems that in the early days (early 1900's) of aviation in Europe, one of the major routes was the crossing of the English Channel - London to Paris and back.  At this time, worldwide air traffic control had not agreed upon English as the universal language as it is now.  Thus, communications was a problem.

SOS was set up as the standard distress call where wired communication was available.  SOS in Morse code was easy (...---...).  Airplanes, of course, used radio communications instead of wired.  The letter S can be confused with the letter F in voice communications.  So, for that English to French air route, the pilots agreed to use the French word "M'aidez" which means "help me". To the Englishmen, it sounded like the French were saying "Mayday".

And now you have it.  It stuck.  So, if you're in a plane and you hear the pilot say "Mayday" on his radio, I suggest you sit calmly in your seat, lean forward and put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.
*o*