North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

PON PON PON? WTF
I was just watching the tv series Deadliest Catch and one of the boats called out ‘PON PON PON’ - The boat that called the distress had capsized and the 4 crew were in the lifeboat.

(I've heard them use the term before but thought it might have been the yank accent meaning to say PAN PAN PAN)


I've never heard the term beforeanywhere else & when I did a google search - it came up a blank.
Anyone heard of it before

It'll be pan pan pan..

Maybe the owner of the boat is a fan of Japanese pop !!

Darwinbloke wrote:It'll be pan pan pan..

I assume so too but even the sub titles had it up as pon pon pon. There were several skippers who used it as well.

Thanks BenH
Even the coast guard said PON Pon

The first reply said
“Transmit a PAN-PAN (pronounced PON-PON) URGENCY call on Channel 16”


Then all the way to no 18.
The correct pronunciation is PAN-PAN ( /ˈpæn ˈpæn/) The æ is pronounced as in bad, ban, pan or bat. Here is a link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English) to the International Phonetic Alphabet for English that gives the correct pronunciation for most English vowels.
PON-PON is NOT correct and will not be recognized by many agencies around the world.

The USCG has mispronounced the call for years. My late wife, who was a two star U.S. Navy admiral (Rear Admiral upper half) and a holder of a PhD in languages and linguistics (among others) and was fluent in 36 different languages was constantly correcting the USCG but they live in a world of their own. When she was a captain and the commanding officer of a cruiser she instructed her communication section to admonish and correct the USCG after the urgent situation was resolved anytime the error was heard.

When I received my Radiotelephone First Class license with ship RADAR endorsement in 1972 we were also taught to pronounce the call as PAN-PAN. In amateur radio the call is PAN-PAN also.
Wikipedia page on PAN-PAN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-pan


So bacisally its just that the dumbarse yanks are showing their superiority and dont know how to speak english
Still a good show

Hi Nomad, when I first saw the title of the thread, I thought you were making an urgent call for PORN PORN PORN!

Blaady Omericon occent