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Short Stuff: Mayday! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Chuck and this is short stuff, the shortest stuff of
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. Stuffer are you calling stuffer? I'm calling
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you a stuffer buddy. Oh yeah, born born and bread
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: stuffer stuff it stuff at like pizza huts, stuff crust,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: cheese cheese, stuffed crust. Had pizza hudding so long. Uh yeah,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I haven't in a little while either. I had to
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: order a garbage pizza the other night though, for the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: first time and probably twenty something years. Whoa are you
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: calling Pizza Hutt a garbage pizza. It wasn't Pizza Hud.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It was another big brand of delivery pizza. But I uh,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: you know, we usually get the good pizza in the neighborhood,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: like the neighborhood Pizzaia's. That's also you know, some of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's wood fired. It's nice. I don't know if I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: call it fancy pizza, but good stuff. But every once
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in a while, you want you know, well, I got
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: shut out. It was during the World Series and Halloween,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: so that's like a huge tonight, and they ran out
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of stuff to make pizza, literally, and so I was
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: forced to turn to the garbage pizza. You know what
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: it was delicious? Yes, of course it is. It's terrible.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: It's terrible for you. There's nothing good about it. Delicious,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it was really great. It's been so long. I was like, man,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I forgot about the garbage pizzas so and you're still
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: like going to say which one, even though you're ultimately
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: saying it was delicious. Huh, that's fine. I'm just I
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: think that's remarkable. Um, chuck. When you picked up the phone,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: because I'm assuming you did this old old school style
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and used the landline, picked up the phone and called, uh,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the garbage pizza company that when they answered the phone,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you said may day, may Day, may Day, I need
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a pizza. Stat No, I said pan pan pan pan. Oh.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: There you go, And they said you want a pan
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: pizza and you'd say no, and please don't interrupt me
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: because I'm supposed to say it three times pam pan oh.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Very funny. This is about may Day. The word we
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: want to thank live mint dot com, wonder Opolis dot org,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Science ABC Today I found out and the Government of
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Canada website was pretty handy. Sure. Um, so we're talking
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: about May Day and everybody knows that may Day is
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a distress call, um, and everybody probably has a better
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: handle on what to do in a May Day distress
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: call then you'd think, because from doing this research, it
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: seems that just about every May Day distress call I've
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: seen in a movie or on TV was pretty accurate.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: It turns out, Yeah, Um, what you do is you
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: say it three times, like you said, you have to
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: do it three times because there there are a couple
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of reasons. They don't want to be confused. First of all,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: they don't want to mistake it for another word. If
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: you just say it once, so just literally reiterating may day,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: they won't say did they say pay day? Those are
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: not that great or not. Um, So that's one reason
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you repeat it three times. Another reason or it could
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: be noisy and uh, you know, in a plane or
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: on a boat or something. And the other reason is
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that they know that you are calling for the May
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Day yourself, like you yourself are in trouble, and you
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: are not relaying a call about a May Day from
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: someone else, which is something we'll get too, called a
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: may Day relay. Um, oh, you're not talking about I
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: think like you were saying that you know you're not
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: talking about some may day call that happened three years
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: ago that was just so great, right yeah, so, um,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: so you do want to say it three times? May
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: day made a mayde a And then right after that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: you've got you've got their attention and you're on stage
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and they want to hear what you have to say.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So you're gonna follow that up with, um, what aircraft
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: or ocean going craft you are? Um, if you have
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: some sort of call number or sign or whatever, you'd
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: want to include that there. Then you're gonna tell him
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: exactly what the problem is. Um, you're taking on water,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: which is a problem whether you're an aircraft or an
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: ocean going c You don't want to take on water
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: in an airplane. No, you want to tell him where
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: you're located or the last place you're known location was,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and maybe what direction you've been traveling in. You want
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to talk about the weather, but not chewing the fat
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: talking about the weather. You wanted to say specifically what
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: kind of weather you're having in case you've got problems? Right?
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: What else? What? Uh, let me see, well, basically how
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: many people are aboard? That might be a nice thing
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to mention. Sure kind of help you want. Yeah, and
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: that that's sort of the big one is, um, you
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: know my plane is going down over this part of
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the ocean, and please send a boat. Yeah, that would
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: probably Yeah, I would have been like, please send another plane,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: but yeah, that wouldn't make any sense. You'd want to boat,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you would want to send Please send a giant trampoline.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Uh So I say we take our break now and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: then leave it as a cliffhanger. As you where the
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: word mayday came from? To begin with nice one? All right,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: we'll be right back as s k as. Okay, Chuck,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: we're talking about the origin of the may day distress call.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Where did it come from? Well, it started in m
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: hm uh it was. It was an idea of this
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: guy named Frederick Mockford. He was a radio officer at
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: uh Kroyd Croydon Airport in London and they were they
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: were looking for a word. They said, hey, we need
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a word, um that somebody can say that everyone knows
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: as a distress signal. And it's got to be really
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: easily understood. Everyone has got to be able to get
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: on board with this thing. And we don't want to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: go to a marketing department. So we'll just go to those,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to the people who do this. And he said, and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: you know, they've been using s os like Morse code,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: but since they were using radio communications more and more,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: because we need an actual word. And help isn't good
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: because people say the word help just in conversation. Help. Yeah,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: so you don't want to like send off fossil alarms.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: It's gotta be something really independent from other words like that.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the air traffic at
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the time was between that report and an airport in Paris.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So he proposed uh, a French word. Yeah, French phrase
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: actually vanez medeer. And he said, let's use the shortened
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: one of may dair maddair vanes made air means come
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: help me. Apparently it's also frequently translated as lenda hand
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: come like like lend me a hand, but the literal
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: translation has come help me, send boat and send a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: giant trampoline. And so he said, how about may dair
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And they said, oh, it's even better, how about this
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: may day. Let's use a word that doesn't even exist,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: although it does exist, but one that no one would
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: ever use uh in normal conversation, and certainly not three
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: times in a row, like you wouldn't say, like, um,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: that made a mayde a mayde a party was the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: greatest mayde a mayde a mayde a party I've ever
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: been to. Yeah, like the mayde a celebration like in um,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: uh what was the follow up to? Um? Yes, thank
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: you buddy. That's right. People liked it. People started using it.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: They said, this is great. Uh. And three years later,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: four years later, it was officially adopted by the International
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Radio Telegraph Convention of Washington, and then I think it
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: took I think it was mainly for planes. And at
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: what I think I figured out is it was is
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: when it became a nautical term as well. Okay, got you,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: because yeah, it says that it was official in forty eight,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: but this Radio Telegraph Convention and adopted it in n
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: got on board a little bit later. That's weird because
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: there were way more boats than planes in n I
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe they were Uh, didn't get on board
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: with the radio communications is quickly. That seems foolish, but okay, alright, so, um,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: there's another way to send a distress call. And you
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier the may Day relay, which is fun to say, Hey, Um.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: The may day relay is if you know that another
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: vessel's in trouble but their communications equipment is knocked out,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you can relay a may day request on their behalf
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and it follows pretty much the similar um similar format. Um,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: it's just your calling on behalf of that other vessel. Right, Yeah,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and I guess there could be a may day relay
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: relay too. I guess you can go on and on
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: if if you're not able to get a message to people,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: you and relay it through other planes and boats. But
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the problem is, though, by the time it finally gets
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to like air traffic control, it comes out as purple
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Monkey dinosaur ah, the old telephone game. Yeah, so let's
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: say you make a made a call and you're just joking.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: They wouldn't nobody would consider that a big whoop, Right,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: it's a big whoop. In the US, you can get fined. Uh,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: you can go to jail for six months, I'm sorry,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: six years to jail. You can. I have a feeling
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: it's more like you pay a fine and suspended sentence.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: But it's a hefty fine, can be up to a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: quarter of a million bucks. And it's one of those
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: deals where if they call out the Coastguard, you gotta
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: you gotta pay them back the money that it costs
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: to run that operation. I saw some somebody in Florida
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in two thousand nine was caught giving a hoax, made
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a call and ended up having to pay the coastguard
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: back nine hundred and six thousand dollars for the for
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the search that was mounted. Yeah, and well you should too.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: If you knowingly purposefully call out the coastguard for kicks
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and they spend nine and six grand, the coastguard should
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: be made whole of that nine grand out of your pocket. Jerk.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And he was like, why was it that much? And
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: he said, well, we built a really nice new boat
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: for your call, right, We used the gold plated boats
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: for that call. Right. We ordered we ordered some really
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: expensive dinner that night. Yeah, you know what, we gotta
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: take out from out back that night. Thanks, thanks for
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that too, Chuck. By the way, I mentioned pan pan earlier.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a joke apparently, and I've never heard
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: this before in my life, but apparently pan pan and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: this is another thing that we nicked from the French.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: It's from p A n n E, meaning breakdown or trouble. Um.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: They apparently pan pan is to be used if it's
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: not life threatening, but you still need help, and you
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: also say it three times. Yes, that's a really important thing. Um.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: You want to say these things three times. That's what
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: gets everybody's attention, right, that's right. So um that means
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the Tom Petty song in French is pam pan. Go
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: ahead and give it to me. I love that, okay,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: so um pam pan is where you're you're basically saying, like,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I've got a pretty like a noteworthy emergency here, but
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: it's probably not life threatening. Somebody on board our boat,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: um has has fallen and broken their kneecap. They're probably
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: not gonna die, but they really want to get off
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: this boat. Can you come help us as soon as possible?
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Kind of thing or Um, there's we we actually have
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a breakdown, like our boat is broken down. We're not
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: in any kind of threat because the weather is fine
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: or whatever, but we do need some help. That's when
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: you would use pam pan. That's right. There's another one
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: too that I could barely find. I found I found
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: it referenced in one article on Wikipedia. Chuck um, and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: that was it. But it's security, and I don't know
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: if you say it security or something like that, but
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: it's spelled s C C U R I T E.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Thinks from the French as well. This may have been
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: from the Government of Canada website, which would make sense,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: but this one makes a lot of sense. You'd say security, security, security,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: if that's how you say it, and then you just
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: immediately proceed and talk about something that's like there's a
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: giant rock that wasn't there before in the shipping lane,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: be careful of that, or there's a shipping container that
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: fell overboard, like you're letting somebody know about a track,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: like a hazard, bad weather, something like that. You're not
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: asking for help, You're just making sure that everybody who
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: needs to know knows about that. That's right. Uh. And
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: then this is neither here nor there in terms of distress,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: but something you will. There's a movie trope that always
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: bugs me, so I threw it in there. If you
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: ever see someone in a movie say over and out,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: it's a screenwriter who doesn't know anything about radio communication.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: No one who knows what they're doing says over and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: out because over means I'm done talking and I'm ready
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: for you to respond and out means that you're done
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and you're leaving. So you would never say over and out.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: You might say over or out you decide I'll wait here,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: but never over and out. Man. That's um. I love that, though.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I wonder who's the first screenwriter to do that. I
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: don't know. I hope I want to find out. Do
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: you ever see the what was it? The Secret Life
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of Sherlock Holmes? No? I did not like it, Chuck.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I didn't like it, and I thought I would. Okay,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: well that's it. Chuck's done talking. I'm done talking now too,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and that means short stuff is out. Radio Stuff You
• 14:01
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