托福詞匯備考：“mayday”的意思

時(shí)間已經(jīng)進(jìn)入2014年的五月，我們都知道五月的英文mayday,但是其實(shí)mayday的意思并不僅限于此，下文就和小編一起去一探究竟吧！了解更多的詞匯典故，一定能為大家的托�？荚嚰臃植簧佟�

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 A listener from Venezuela sent us a question about the meaning of the expression mayday. He wrote that he often hears this expression in movies.

Mayday is an emergency code word. It is used around the world in voice communications. You might see a war movie in which an airplane has been hit by rocket fire. The pilot gets on his radio and calls "mayday, mayday, mayday" to tell that his plane is in danger of crashing to the ground.

Mayday has nothing to do with the month of May. It comes from the French expressions "venez m'aider," or "m'aidez," which mean "help me."

Frederick Stanley Mockford created the mayday call signal in the nineteen twenties. Mockford was a radio officer at Croydon Airport in London. He was asked to think of a word that could be used in an emergency. The word had to be easily understood by all pilots and airport workers. Much of the air traffic at that time was between Croydon Airport and Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France. So he proposed the word mayday.

Today, many groups use the word to mean a life-threatening emergency. The call is always given three times to prevent mistaking it for some similar sounding words.

Many other French words are commonly used in English. One of these words is even in the Special English Word Book. It is sabotage. It means to damage or destroy as an act of subversion against an organization or nation.

You may have heard the term laissez-faire to describe a kind of economic or political policy. It means to leave alone and not interfere. It was first used in France in the eighteenth century.

In the business world, entrepreneur is another French word. It means a person who starts and operates a new business and has responsibility for any risks involved.

Many French words are used in the arts. For example, a film noir is a movie about murder and other crimes. These films were popular in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. Anything in art, music or literature which is very modern or ahead of its time is called avant-garde.

以上就是Mayday的詞匯典故，大家要注意掌握這類詞匯，以便更好地適應(yīng)未來的留學(xué)生活。更多托�？荚囐Y訊，請(qǐng)關(guān)注新通外語托福頻道。

　　　撥打免費(fèi)電話400-618-0272，咨詢托福疑難。

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