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