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**outdog** · 05-31-2006, 06:41 AM

It doesnt stand for anything. The old British ships used to use CQD which stood for (seek you - distress) solely because seek you was the standard form of attempting to relay a general message to another ship.

However CQD was mistaken for many things and thus it was changed by the Germans to something which couldn't be screwed up by amateur morse operators: dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot.

With voice recording something aural needed to be created and in the 1920s some bright spark in England suggested an anglicised for of the word m'aider be used (Mayday) because the planes from that airport only went to France.

What we don't have is a visual version of distress. I suggest feigning childbirth or people screaming in front of a camera or something.

05-31-2006, 06:41 AM	#10
outdog Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 390 Senior Member	It doesnt stand for anything. The old British ships used to use CQD which stood for (seek you - distress) solely because seek you was the standard form of attempting to relay a general message to another ship. However CQD was mistaken for many things and thus it was changed by the Germans to something which couldn't be screwed up by amateur morse operators: dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot. With voice recording something aural needed to be created and in the 1920s some bright spark in England suggested an anglicised for of the word m'aider be used (Mayday) because the planes from that airport only went to France. What we don't have is a visual version of distress. I suggest feigning childbirth or people screaming in front of a camera or something.
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