A third grader did some May Day research, and suddenly I had a great question. Why is the distress call from a ship "Mayday"? What does distress have to do with May Day? I wondered.
Mrs. D. didn't know either. She used her phone-a-friend to call Mr. D. Amazingly, he didn't know. He didn't know and suggested the internet, but Mrs. D wanted to talk to a human expert. Next, she tried Son-in-Law, "the human encyclopedia." He said something about a French word for 'help me.'
I used the internet to check into it further. Venez m'aider is French for "come help me." Mayday is a codeword used internationally, repeated three times to indicate a life-threatening emergency. It has nothing to do with May or May Day.
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