From 'panic button' to 'ahead of the curve': Did you know these aviation-related terms?

Last week we looked at words derived from the days of sailing ships, but the English language has also been altered by a more recent phenomenon — aviation.

“Mayday!” is a familiar word from action films. Derived from the French phrase “m’aidez”, which translates to “help me”, it was introduced into the English language in 1923 for use in maritime and aviation communication. Assigned the task of devising a clear distress signal for voice radio, ships, and individuals facing severe trouble at sea, Frederick Stanley Mockford, a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London, chose “Mayday”. The term gained official international recognition in 1948 as a universally understood emergency distress signal.

When someone boasts he is “ahead of the curve”, in other words performing better, earlier or faster than the competition, that expression also has its roots in flying. The phrase derives from the mathematics of flight, and refers to the way the aircraft gains power after take-off, which is why in aviation it is sometimes referred to as “ahead of the power curve”. Similarly someone who takes a bold or experimental step these days is said to be “pushing the envelope”. This refers to the “flight envelope”, defined as the particular combination of speed, height, stress and other aeronautical factors within which a plane can be safely operated. To go beyond that, or to push that envelope, is risky and dangerous in aviation, but in its figurative sense, it means "to go beyond established limits” or “to pioneer," and is used in admiration rather than admonition.

When someone says “she took a lot of flak” or “caught a lot of flak” for something she has said or done, we understand she came in for a great deal of severe criticism. “Flak” originally referred to anti-aircraft artillery, and the term entered popular usage around the time of the Second World War. It came into English from the German Flak, which was itself condensed from Fliegerabwehrkanone, literally ”a cannon that wards off a pilot”. By the late 1960s, the literal usage soon morphed into the figurative, meaning "excessive or abusive criticism” or "fierce dissension or opposition." By our own century even this figurative meaning has been further extended. In the realm of public relations, a “flak catcher” is "a slick spokesperson who can turn any criticism to the advantage of their employer." This is principally a U.S. colloquialism, but then American usages tend to spread around the world.

The word “gremlin” has come to mean a bug that disrupts something and is commonly used to explain computer malfunctions these days, but it originated as Royal Air Force slang, and has been in use since at least 1941. Apparently British pilots facing inexplicable aircraft mishaps in those tense wartime days jokingly attributed them to this mischievous sprite, a gremlin — a word combining the Old English gremman, "to anger, vex," and the ending of goblin, (though some say it may come from the Irish gruaimin, a "bad-tempered little fellow.") The word later came to embody any type of mischief — including, in the early 1960s, of "a trouble-maker who frequents the beaches to ogle bathers but does not surf".