Meaning of pan-pan | Babel Free

Definitions

1. 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.
   uncountable
2. A Japanese prostitute who catered to American GIs in post-WWII occupied Japan.
   historical

Examples

“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).”

“You can use the same outline for Pan Pan calls.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“...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.”

“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.”

“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").”

CEFR level