That Old Chesnut: Mayday!

Look, I made an incisive political cartoon in MSPaint. You're welcome.

Some people think our pal Oven Mitt Romney's campaign is all, "Mayday!" since that awkward Libya incident and then that one video of him being like, "Poors think they should have food and shelter. Fuck those guys because they are almost as bad as I am at paying taxes" came out. So I thought I would explore the etymology of "mayday" for all y'all.

Back in 1923, some British radio dude decided it was high time he and his pilot compatriots flying back and forth across the Channel come up with some kind of emergency distress call lingua franca nonsense. He decided upon "mayday" which supposedly derives from "m'aider" which is like "Help me!" in  Frenchy French, but is easy for English speakers to say because it doesn't have any funny diacritic marks or whole ends of words you're just not supposed to pronounce. But anyway, you have to say it three times in a row, or else it doesn't count. You know, like Beetlejuice. AND there are all sorts of other Frenchy urgent radio announcements you can make from your boat or your plane* that I don't care about.  But anyway, don't fake that shit. The Coast Guard will fine the fuck out of you for that. Good thing for M-Rom$ there's no coast guard in the Cayman Islands.**

THE MORE YOU KNOW!

*Governor Bishop Romney, this means you.
**This is almost certainly a false statement.