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Topic: Terms of aviation history

Two notable aviation events occurred on this date during the last century. On May 20th, 1927, airman Charles Lindbergh took off from New York. 33 hours and 30 minutes later, he landed his plane in Paris, France. In addition to winning a $25,000 prize purse, Lucky Lindy made history by being the first person to cross the Atlantic alone by air and he broke the record for the longest straight-line distance flown non-stop in an airplane.

Five years later to the day, Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland and headed for Paris. Although bad conditions forced an early landing in Ireland, Earhart's flight was the first successful solo transatlantic flight by a woman.

So did these pioneering aviators land any noteworthy linguistic contributions? Not really, although lexicographers generally credit Lindbergh's nickname Lindy with inspiring the name of the jitterbug dance in 1931.

Of course, that's not to say those legendary flights didn't influence the lexicon. 1927 saw the birth of the terms airfield, copilot, bleary-eyed, and Mayday. Mayday, by the way, comes not from the first day of May but from the French verb m'aider meaning "help me."

And 1932 witnessed the birth of adventurism, newsworthy, and the adverb flat-out meaning "at top speed or peak performance."

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.

So that's where 'mayday' comes from!

And I liked that fact, chessiejo. xD