![]() Hard to imagine that many ship’s masters enjoyed routinely losing an anchor or two, so it is probably more likely referring to the practice of securing the sails of a square-rigged ship with rope yarns that could easily be cut away when a quick departure was necessary.Ĭut of one’s jib - warships many times had their foresails or jib sails cut thinly so that they could maintain point and not be blown off course. Before long, ‘copper-bottomed’ began to be used figuratively to refer to anything that was certain and trustworthy.Ĭut and run - most often thought to mean the cutting of an anchor line in an effort to make a quick getaway. The method was successful in protecting ships’ timbers and in increasing speed and manoeuvrability and soon became widely used. Shipworms and to reduce infestations by barnacles. The process was first used on ships of the British Navy in 1761 to defend their wooden planking against attack by Teredo worms a.k.a. This eventually came to mean ‘near enough to to be able to fight hand to hand’.Ĭopper-bottomed - described ships that were fitted with copper plating on the underside of their hulls. By the mid 18th century that confined defensive space became called ‘close quarters’, i.e. Current usage similar to batten down the hatches.Ĭlose quarters - In the 17th century, the barriers that sailors laid across a ship’s deck in order to provide a safe haven from the enemy were called close-fights. Shore-side, it means in good shape.Ĭlear the deck - One of the things done in preparation for battle. ![]() Predictably this lead to its current meaning, “crammed so tightly together as to prevent movement”.Ĭlean bill of health - A certificate signed by a port authority attesting that no contagious disease existed in the port of departure and none of the crew was infected with a disease at the time of sailing. The phrase describes what occurs the system is raised to its fullest extent – when there is no more rope free and the blocks jam tightly together. It was sometimes a handy weapon for quarrelling crewmen.Ĭhock-a-block - A block and tackle is a pulley system used on sailing ships to hoist the sails. When heated it was used to seal the pitch in deck seams. Any ship that was out of sight of land was in an uncertain position and in danger of becoming lost.Īloof - Now means to stand apart or be indifferent, but it came from the Old Dutch word loef which meant “windward” and was used to describe a ship within a fleet which sailed higher to the wind and was thus drawn apart from the rest of the fleet.Īt loggerheads - An iron ball attached to a long handle was a loggerhead. If something is open and in plain view, it is above board.Īll at sea - This dates to the time when accurate navigational aids weren’t available. Hence we get the term ‘log-book’ and also the name ‘knot’ as the unit of speed at sea.Ībove board - Anything on or above the open deck. These measurements were later transcribed into a book. The rate at which the string was paid out as the ship moved away from the stationary log was measured by counting how long it took between knots n the string. An early form of measuring a ship’s progress was by casting overboard a wooden board (the log) with a string attached. The term log-book has an interesting derivation in itself. ![]() It is lucky for us, in our endeavours to distinguish truth from falsehood, that activities at sea have been scrupulously recorded over the centuries, in insurance records, newspaper accounts and, not least, in ships’ log books. ![]() CANOE, the Committee to Ascribe a Naval Origin to Everything, doesn’t really exist, but the number of these folk myths makes it seem as though they do… After all, it sounds plausible that ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’ comes from brass ship’s fittings and that POSH means ‘Port out, starboard home’, but neither of these is correct. This can be attributed to the attractiveness of the romantic image of horny-handed sailors singing shanties and living a hearty and rough life at sea. It is an undoubted fact that seafaring is also the source of more false etymology than any other sphere. Many phrases that have been adopted into everyday use originate from seafaring – in particular from the days of sail.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |