Should everyone speak English?

[chinita]

I have two alternators, an inverter, three solar panels but would like a suitcase generator to keep as a back up if really necessary.
There is a inverter/ generator on sale here for 250 pounds (1KW, 5,300 rpm, 59 decibels, 14 kgs). Is this big enough or would you go bigger. I just want something that will help us through should we be at anchor for longer than intended.

I think poor old Nostro has finally lost it.

 

[Nostrodamus]

I think poor old Nostro has finally lost it.

I used to be a schizophrenic but we are both alight now

 

[chinita]

I used to be a schizophrenic but we are both alight now

Don't worry, it happens to all four of us!

 

[BobPrell]

'Mayday' came from the French 'M'aidez' (help me), or so I'm told.

I heard that explanation many times over the years. Then a few years ago I was watching a doco about Charles De Gaulle and it showed him giving a speech beginning "Francaises! Francaises! Aidez-moi!" (Frenchmen, Frenchwomen, help me").

Le Grande Charles was said to be a stickler for correct grammar, so I wondered. As a francophile, I would like to get it right.

I thought that so recently asked a french person - she said Mayday and Pan were not french to her knowledge but silence was.

This thread revived my curiosity so off to Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday
Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning "come help me".[1]

I then used Google translate and it gives
help me = aidez-moi

come to help me = venez m'aider (I did this because "come help me" is american english but it made no difference).

come to my aid = viens à mon aide

So I believe a french person in strife would call out "aidez-moi" rather than "m'aidez".

 

[Sandyman]

I think poor old Nostro has finally lost it.

Not sure he's ever had it Maybe his next post will be in French.

 

[BrianH]

One-on-one is a great way to learn a smattering of several languages, even if you do have to be careful where you speak some of the words afterwards.

Ah yes, you remind me, the unofficial, good looking one, she came from Extramadura

Known in merchant shipping as a "pillow dictionary". (Be particularly careful if you learn Japanese this way...)

And not because of wrong pillow words. My Japanese ex. once warned me about that, citing the American servicemen that picked up the language from their wives whom they met while stationed in Japan. They subsequently had every Japanese sniggering at them behind their hands, so different is the way men and women speak.

 

[al.carpenter]

I heard that explanation many times over the years. Then a few years ago I was watching a doco about Charles De Gaulle and it showed him giving a speech beginning "Francaises! Francaises! Aidez-moi!" (Frenchmen, Frenchwomen, help me").

Le Grande Charles was said to be a stickler for correct grammar, so I wondered. As a francophile, I would like to get it right.



This thread revived my curiosity so off to Wikipedia.

I then used Google translate and it gives
help me = aidez-moi

come to help me = venez m'aider (I did this because "come help me" is american english but it made no difference).

come to my aid = viens à mon aide

So I believe a french person in strife would call out "aidez-moi" rather than "m'aidez".

Hi all, hi BobPrell,

Mayday does not derive from "m'aideZ" or "aidez moi" but from "m'aideR" from the verb "aider" (to help) and the contraction "m'" meaning "moi", "me" On the radio, in an emergency, you do not want to speak Voltaire,s french let alone De Gaulle's french... (his speeches used to last hours.... and so boring....) so phonetics for "m'aider" is "mayday"...
This thread reminds me of my youth when I was flying choppers for ALAT, on Thursdays, radio procedures between A/C and ATC was in English and listening to some of us was hilarious and I still wonder at this day how there could be so few accidents on that day of the week....
Nowadays, more or less every under thirty french person has basic English or a serious "confidence in himself" problem....

 

[Sybarite]

So I believe a french person in strife would call out "aidez-moi" rather than "m'aidez".

I think he would more likely shout "Au secours!"

 

[Tidewaiter2]

I think he would more likely shout "Au secours!"

William of Normandie's war cry was 'Dex Aie'; Gods Aid.
Allowing for linguistic drift over the C's?