Nautical Expressions in the Vernacular by Gibbons Burke Myriad expressions in everyday English have nautical origins.

Author Patrick O'Brian has an interesting way of using these expressions in a way that allows the reader to make the connection between a familiar phrase in everyday language with its marine heritage. This web page lists expressions and definitions mentioned by listswains, members of the Patrick O'Brian Mailing List, also known as the Gunroom, the origins of which are made clear by passages from O'Brian's writing in which his characters' usage explains the provenance of the phrase. Wanted - Examples of O'Brian or any of his characters explaining these terms - if you happen across one in your reading, I'd be most obliged if you'd send me the reference. This is a work in progress, so none of these explanations is The Final Word on the subject, unless it be Patrick O'Brian's. If you have a better explanation, example, or reference in the series, please let me know. A rich and interesting repository of etymologies and sources of nautical words ultimately destined for the Oxford English Dictionary can be found at the Maritime History Citations for the OED site at the University of Minnesota at Duluth.

Other Patrick O'Brian Resources: The Patrick O'Brian Web Resources page.

Expressions with explanations freeze the balls of off a brass monkey It is not what you think. On ships, cannon balls were sometimes stacked in what was called a monkey, usually made from brass. When it got really cold the monkey would contract forcing some of the cannon balls to fall off. [Steve Rose (rose@rtl.ENET.dec.com)] son of a gun "...both had been bred to the sea from their earliest years - Bonden, indeed, had been born between two of the Indefatigable's lower-deck guns..." [Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island, p. 7, per Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net)] If paternity was uncertain the child was entered in the log as "son of a gun". [ Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, per Walt Mazur (w_mazur@primenet.com)] the cat is out of the bag "Vowles drew the cat from its red baize bag, phlegmatically took up his stance, and as the ship reached the height of her roll he laid on the first stroke. 'Oh my God,' cried Weightman, enormously loud." [Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove, p. 198] As I understand it, the cat 'o nine tails was normally kept in a cloth bag, and was only pulled out immediately prior to flogging, hence the phrase signifying that one has crossed some bright line of misconduct, etc. I also have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that the bag

was sometimes brandished in front of a potentia l miscreant to warn him, somewhat like brandishing the mace before an unruly member of a legislature. [JRMcE@aol.com] Brewer's has a different explanation. Scrubs would sell a suckling pig to someone, presenting them with a squirming sack, or "poke". The unfortunate would then have bought a pig in a poke. When the poke was opened, he would find not a nice edible pig, but a cat; thus, letting the cat out of the bag reveals the deception. This seems to jibe with usage a little better. [Walt Mazur (w_mazur@primenet.com)] no room to swing a cat During punishment all hands were called on deck to bear witness. In the case of a ship with a full complement on board this could make for a very crowded deck. In fact the deck could be so crowded that a cat o' nine tails could not be used without hitting the observers so that there was no room to swing a cat. [Bill Strauss (wstrauss@frbchi.org)] three sheets to the wind On a small boat there are three sheets that control the sails. The Main Sheet controls the mainsail, and two sheets that control the headsail the Windward Sheet and the Leeward Sheet. So a person that has three sheets to the wind means that the sheets are flying with the wind i.e. you do not have control of the boat. Much like someone who has three sheets to the wind does not have control over themselves. [Ibid.] splice the mainbrace take a drink [alfanso@roadrunner.com (Charles Keller)] P.O.S.H. Port Outward, Starboard Home - when traveling to India from Britain and back - keeps your cabin on the shady side of the ship. [This well-known explanation is refuted in the alt.usage.english FAQ.] [Scott Bayes (bayes@fortnet.org); c.f. alt.usage.english FAQ ] the devil to pay "'Why, the devil, do you see,' said Jack, 'is the seam between the deck-planking and the timbers, and we call it the devil, because it is the devil for the caulkers to come at: in full we say the devil to pay and no pitch hot; and what we mean is, that there is something hell-fire difficult to be done - must be done - and nothing to do it with. It is a figure.'" [Patrick O'Brian, The Mauritius Command, p. 280, per Michael Krugman (myriad@panix.com)] Aboard wooden sailing ships. the devil was the neame given to the seam formed at the juncture where the covering board that capped the ships sides met the deck planking. The seam was particularly difficult to caulk because of its length, because there was so little space in which to perform the awkward task, and because there was so little standing room between the devil and the sea. [From the latest International Marine catalog announcing the publication of When a Loose Cannon Flogs a Dead Horse There's the Devil to Pay: Seafaring Words in Everyday Speech by Olivia A. Isil] between the devil and the deep blue sea [c.f. the devil to pay, above] I vaguely recall that this has also been explained as an anglicism of the Homeric passage about Scylla (the rocks off Sicily) and the whirlpool Charybdis. I also think it impacts upon between a rock and a hard place. [JRMcE@aol.com; Spencer K. Whetstone (spencer@dgandf.com) assist] the whole nine yards If you look at a "typical square-rigger" (see the picture in the front pages of any of the O'Brian

books you will see that there are three masts with three yards on each mast. So if you had all of the square sails a flying on board you would have the whole nine yards in operation. ie. everything. [Bill Strauss (wstrauss@frbchi.org)] Other suggestions have included: Volume in a concrete mixer, coal truck, or a wealthy person's grave; amount of cloth in a man's custom-made (i.e., "bespoke") suit, sports games, funeral shroud, kilt, in a bolt of cloth, square area in a ship's sails, and volume in a soldier's pack. [Folklore FAQ and and English Usage FAQ per Denis McKeon (dmckeon@swcp.com)] minding your P's and Q's. ...amongst the several explanations I have seen (pints and quarts, etc. etc.) is the feeble suggestion that sailors used to be told to watch their "Pea" jackets and pig-tails [queues, laden with pre-mousse tar, so that their jackets would not become tarred.]. [Stephen Cole (76570.2534@compuserve.com); c.f. alt.usage.english FAQ ] slush fund from the "slush" saved (and eventually sold) by the ship's cook. [Ken Kapson (amscrap@mail.suba.com)] to be pooped "...even worse, she lost some of her way at the bottom, whereas she needed all her speed to outrun the following seas, for if they were to overtake her she would be pooped, smothered in a mass of breaking water. Then ten to one she would slew round and broach to, presenting her broadside to the wind, so that the next sea would overwhelm her." [Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island, p. 228, per Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net)] to be taken aback To be astounded, taken by surprise. From the sailing-ship term aback, when the sails press against the mast and progress is suddenly stayed. [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, per Jill Dillon (J_Dillon@msn.com)] to back and fill A nautical phrase, denoting a mode of tacking when the tide is with the vessel and the wind is against it. Metaphorically, to be irresolute. [Ibid.] to go by the board To go for good, to be completely destroyed or finished with, thrown overboard. When a ship's mast is carried away it is said "to go by the board", board here meaning the ship's side. [Ibid.] to make headway To get on, to struggle effectively against something, as a ship makes headway against a tide or current... [Ibid.] in the offing Said of a ship visible at sea off the land. Such a ship is often approaching port, hence the phrase is used figuratively to mean 'about to happen'... [Ibid.] to batten down the hatches "'Tell me, Jack, just how would you explain the term battened down?' "A piercing look showed Jack that although this was almost past believing he was not in fact being made game of, and he replied 'First I should say that we talk very loosely about hatches, often meaning hatchways and even ladderways - "he came up the fore hatch" - which of course ain't hatches at all. The real hatches are the things that cover the hatchways: gratings

and close-hatches. Now as you know very well, when a great deal of water comes aboard either from the sea of the sky or both, we cover those real hatches with tarpaulins.' "'I believe I have seen it done,' said Stephen. "'Not above five thousand times,' said Jack inwardly, and aloud 'And if it also comes on to blow and rain uncommon hard, we take battens, stout laths of wood, that fit against the coaming, the raised rim of the hatchway, and so pin the tarpaulin down drum tight. Some people do it by nailing the batten to the deck, but it is a sad, sloppy, unseamanlike way of carrying on, and we have cleats.'" [Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove, or, Clarissa Oakes, pp.124-5] jury rig "assembled in a makeshift manner", is attested since 1788. It comes from "jury mast", a nautical term attested since 1616 for a temporary mast made from any available spar when the mast has broken or been lost overboard. The OED dubiously recorded a suggestion that this was short for "injury mast", but recent dictionaries say that is probably from Old French ajurie="help or relief", from Latin adiutare="to aid" (the source of the English word "adjutant"). [alt.usage.english FAQ] at loggerheads "...They had been sparring, in a spirit of fun, with loggerheads, those massy iron balls with long handles to be carried red-hot from the fire and plunged into buckets of tar or pitch so that the substance might be melted with no risk of flame. 'They are sober now, sir; and penitent, the creatures.'" [Patrick O'Brian, The Commodore, p.12; per James Gell (gellj@mary.iia.org)] crew cut Crew cut refers to the monthly (at least) haircuts that would be offered. [USS Constitution docent, per Scott Rosenthal (scott79@ix.netcom.com)] The hair, beard, and mustache must be worn neatly trimmed. The face must be kept clean shaved, except a mustache or beard and mustache may be worn at discretion. No eccentricities in the manner of wearing the hair, beard or mustache are allowed. [The Bluejackets' Manual, The United States Naval Institute, 1943] skyscraper A triangular sail set above the skysail to maximize the advantage of a light favorable wind. A triangular moonsail. [Dean King, et. al., A Sea of Words, p. 338] On the clipper ships and perhaps in Jack's time, they had sails which would go above the royals. I cannot quite remember the order, but it went some thing like skyscrapers, moonrakers, angel's foot stools and finally star gazers which were only set in dead calms and as I read in one book, the crew were not even allowed to sneeze. ... the skyscrapers would come from this, being the highest 'used' sail on a ship. The others were mostly for show as they could not bear out a strong wind without being carried over the side. [Anthony Vogl (abv@keene.edu)] skylarking Yet the Surprise, lying there in the road, had three midshipmen aboard, and what they lacked in intelligence they made up for in physical activity. R_____, having but one arm, could no longer go skylarking, hurling himself about the uppe r rigging regardless of gravity, but his messmates N_____ and W_____ would hoist him by an easy purchase to astonishing heights, and from these, having still one powerful hand and legs that could twist around any rope, he would plunge with infinite satisf action. He was at the masthead, negligently holding the starboard main topgallant shrouds with the intention of sliding straight down the whole length of the topgallant backstay, well over a hundred feet, when his eye, wandering towards San Lorenzo, caugh t the odd spectacle of a very small boat trying to tow a much larger one...

[Patrick O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, pp.190-1] toe the line "[Amos Dray] ...shaded his mouth with his hand and in a deep rumble whispered, 'Toe the line, my dears.' "The two little pudding-faced twin girls in clean pinafores stepped forward to a particular mark on the carpet, and together, piping high and shrill, they cried, 'Good morning, sir.'" [Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island, p. 8, per Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net)] scuttlebutt 'What are you a-thinking of, sir?' cried his steward? 'Don't you see he is bleeding like a pig from under his bandage?' Killick whipped into the quarter-gallery for a towel and thrust it under Dutuord's head. 'Now I must take all them covers off and soak them this directly minute in fresh cold water and there ain't no cold fresh water, which the scuttle-butt is empty till Chips comes back and shifts the hand-pump.' [Patrick O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, p. 37] Scuttle is a fairly old term for a small rectangular hole cut into the deck or side of a ship for light, ventilation, and sometimes communication between decks. A butt was simple a wooden cask for provisions. Traditionally, a butt of water was to last for two days. The problem was, how to keep the crew from drinking the whole cask in one day. Eventually, someone thought to scuttle a butt (put a hole in it halfway up), attach it to the upper deck, and have the water ration poured in each day up to the hole. Before long, the place to get a drink became known as the scuttled butt, and eventually, the scuttlebutt. The term came to be applied to rumors passed around while waiting to get a drink. [Rich Benedict (dick@dragonsys.com)] Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book (1867) gives: "SCUTTLE or SCUTTLED BUTT. A cask having a square piece sawn out of its bilge, and lashed in a convenient place to hold water for present use." However, I don't recall ever hearing the term during my wartime service in the Royal Navy ....and am fairly sure that the sense of 'office rumor picked up at the water-cooler' is American rather than British. [John Harland (ylwm0161@cyberstore.ca)] Scuttle. - To make holes in a ship's bottom to sink her. A round or square opening in the deck. [The Bluejackets' Manual, The United States Naval Institute, 1943] More from The Bluejackets' Manual: dismantle To unrig a vessel and discharge all stores. field day Day for cleaning up all parts of a ship. forging ahead Going ahead slowly. overhaul To take apart, thoroughly examine, and repar; to overtake. pipe down A boatswain's call denoting the completion of an all hands evolution, and that you can go below. This expression is also used to mean "Keep quiet." water-logged When a vessel is so full of water as to be heavy and unmanageable.

windfall A rush of wind from the high land; a stroke of good luck. up-take The enclosed trunk connecting a boiler or a group of boilers to the smokestack. the bitter end "Meanwhile the bosun and his mates, together with the most experienced forecastle hands and tierers, roused out the best cable the Diane possessed, the most nearly new and unfrayed, a seventeen-inch cable that they turned end for end - no small undertaking in that confined space, since it weighed three and a half tons - and bent it to the best bower anchor by the wholly unworn end that had always been abaft the bitts: the bitter end. There was thought to be good luck attached to the bitter end, as well as greater strength." [Patrick O'Brian, The Thirteen Gun Salute, p. 299, per David Peck (dpeck@world.std.com)]

Other everyday expressions with nautical origin aloof bail out bear up (down, off) by and large catch my drift chock-a-block (chock full) clear the deck close quarters cross the line cruiser deadwood dog's body down the hatch fend off first rate from stem to stern give leeway go overboard great guns groggy halcyon days haul up short hit the deck hulk in the doldrums junk (chunk) learn the ropes logging on (disputed nautical origin) loose cannon lower the boom main stay (as in "he was the mainstay of our team") make a clean sweep on an even keel on another tack plain sailing run afoul of shake a leg (or) show a leg show your true colors snub

sound out standoff stranded take someone down a peg take the wind out of his sails weather a storm

Thanks to the Contributors: Ace Brown (ABrown6864@aol.com) Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net) Anthony Vogl (abv@keene.edu) Bill Strauss (wstrauss@frbchi.org) Charles Keller (alfanso@roadrunner.com) David P. Cooke (COOKED@mtomp001.allied.com) David Peck (dpeck@world.std.com) Denis McKeon (dmckeon@swcp.com) Hope (IgClydus@aol.com) James Gell (gellj@mary.iia.org) Jill Dillon" (J_Dillon@msn.com) JRMcE@aol.com (eponymous) Kevin Masten (kevin@tyrell.net) Michael Krugman (myriad@panix.com) Rich Benedict (dick@dragonsys.com) Scott Bayes (bayes@fortnet.org) Scott Rosenthal (scott79@ix.netcom.com) Spencer K. Whetstone (spencer@dgandf.com) Stephen Cole (76570.2534@compuserve.com) Steve Rose (rose@rtl.ENET.dec.com) Sue Ruff (SueRuff@aol.com) Walt Mazur (w_mazur@primenet.com) [Patrick O'Brian Resources] [Gibbons Burke's Home Page] Last modified 17 March 1998