pan-pan

From English pan-pan, from French panne (“breakdown”).

pan-pan

1. (radio slang) minor emergency requiring some assistance, not life-threatening

• mayday

• IPA^(key): /pæn.pæn/

From French panne (“breakdown”), reduplicated.

• pan pan, panpan, Pan Pan, Pan-Pan, PAN-PAN

pan-pan (uncountable)

1. (aviation, shipping) A radio call indicating a minor emergency requiring some assistance, or priority in handling, but not endangering the safety of the vessel or those aboard.
   • 1996, John Mellor, Handling Troubles Afloat, page 179:

     It should be a relatively simple matter (particularly on a modern yacht) to teach almost anyone to heave-to, take the position from an electronic navigator, then make a PAN-PAN call on the radio (see below).

   • 2005, Bob Armstrong, Getting Started in Powerboating, page 170:

     You can use the same outline for Pan Pan calls.

   • 2006, Elbert S. Maloney, Chapman Piloting & Seamanship, page 411:

     If you transmit a Pan-Pan call, then find that you no longer require assistance, you must cancel the message.

• mayday
• sécurité
• SOS

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

pan-pan

1. (historical) A Japanese prostitute who catered to American GIs in post-WWII occupied Japan.
   • 2003, David Richard Leheny, The Rules of Play: National Identity and the Shaping of Japanese Leisure, →ISBN:

     In his recent overview of occupied Japan, John Dower poignantly describes the "pan-pan girls" who offended conservatives with their willingness to trade sexual favors for the Americans' gifts and money.

   • 2004, Douglas Slaymaker, The Body in Postwar Japanese Fiction, →ISBN, page 41:

     Their fiction does, however, reflect specificiteis of post-Surrender society; the women work as maids and pan-pan, American GIs are ever-present, and shortages and disruptions are commonplace.

   • 2007, The Journal of Japanese Studies - Volume 33, Issue 2, page 400:

     ...popular perceptions of the pan-pan has given way in Ōe's series to an androcentric censure that sees the native intellectual youth as the chief victim of occupation.

   • 2009, Stephen Mansfield, Tokyo: A Cultural and Literary History, page 210:

     The sight of the heavily made-up pan pan smoking on street corners beneath railway overpasses at stations like Yurakucho, or even worse, the sight of these women hanging from the arm of their swaggering GI partners, constituted a painful affront to male national pride.

   • 2010, Maria Höhn, Seungsook Moon, Over There: Living with the U.S. Military Empire from World War Two to the Present, →ISBN:

     The pan-pan girls who associated with African American GIs ("Kuro-pan" or "Black pan-pan girls") were considered lower status than those who associated with Euro-American GIs ("Shiro-pan", or "White pan-pan girls").