What is the origin of the emergency code word, “Mayday”?
Mayday is an emergency code word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications, 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”, a word currently understood around the world as a distress call. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency by many groups, such as police forces, pilots, the fire brigade, and transportation organizations. The call is always given three times in a row (“Mayday Mayday Mayday”) to prevent mistaking it for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions, and to distinguish an actual mayday call from a message about a mayday call.
