Mayday
In The Handmaid’s Tale, the secret group that is working to take down the government of Gilead is called “Mayday“. This term originated in 1923 when an unknown radio officer at the Croydon Airport in London began to use the word as a code for distress that would be clear and easy to understand over the radio. Pilots had heard different distress calls from Europe, and the French term for “help me” is “m’aider”, which English-speaking people pronounced as “Mayday”. It was decided that British pilots should use this as well, and it was eventually adopted by Americans and Canadians, as well. It only makes sense, then, that the handmaids are very literally saying “help me” to get out of their situation.