Gangway!

Sea Language Comes Ashore

Joanna Carver Colcord, Paul Dickson

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780486291154
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Linguistica

`A delight to all who enjoy the American language.` — The Christian Science Monitor

Landlubbers use a remarkable number of terms and expressions that originated at sea, from `casting about` and `learning the ropes` to `parting company,` `spinning a yarn,` and `going by the board.` This readable dictionary of maritime vernacular offers concise explanations for the seagoing meanings behind `catspaw,` `kick the bucket,` `kittle o' fish,` `palaver,` `three sheets in the wind,` and other curious lingo.
Hailed by The Washington Post as `entertaining and informative,` this illustrated reference is a great gift for any sailor or lover of language. It's also a unique contribution to the study of American English and slang.

S

Sagged. Of a vessel, sunk in the middle—the opposite of hogged, q.v.

Sail(s). (1) A ship’s canvas. When under all plain sail, she has all her usual sails set. Seamen have many slang terms for sails—kites, muslin, washing, and for the hated small fancy pieces, “ladies pocket handkerchiefs.” They do not, however, speak of a ship as being “dressed” in her sails—that word is reserved for flag decorations. See Signals.

A sail is also another ship sighted. This probably goes back to the days of the Vikings, when a vessel carried only a single sail. For a plural form, see sail of vessels.

Alongshore, a strange sail is a person seen approaching who is unknown to the speaker. “Cut your sails to fit your canvas” may be either advice to be prudent, or a sardonic comment on over-cautiousness.

The process of handling sails has contributed many phrases to shore speech. To make sail for somewhere is to start off in a hurry; with all sail set, full sail ahead, under full sail, or under press of sail means proceeding fast, determinedly; see Carry on, Crowd on.

To trim one’s sails according to the wind is to be guided by expediency; this is the origin of the slang phrase “a trimmer.” To take in, or shorten, sail is to proceed more cautiously. See reef. “After you get past sixty, it’s time to shorten sail.”

To take the wind out of one’s sails is to sail windward of another vessel and thereby cut off the wind; hence to frustrate or forestall.

(2) In the seaman’s vocabulary, the verb to sail is pretty much confined to the act of leaving port. So strong is the pull of this usage that steamship men have never been able to legitimize the verb “to steam”—they too continue to sail when sailing day comes around. Only a shipmaster, as the man who directed the operation, says “I sailed”—from such a place for another. The rest of the ship’s company modestly says “We sailed.”

For the vessel’s performance, sail is used in some connections. She sails well or poorly—is a good sailer or a bad. When clear of debt, she sails on her own bottom. A day’s sail is the same as a day’s run. But in general, other verbs are preferred; see Make, Stand. One goes sailing only in a pleasure boat. The Nantucket whaling captain who arrived home after a two-year voyage, reporting “We hain’t got ne’er a barrel of ile, but we had a damn fine sail,” was deliberately using summer visitors’ language to heighten his effect.

In shore speech, to sail in is to attack someone or something with vigor: “Sail in and win!” A stately lady sails into a drawing room (see also Sweep), Smooth sailing, clear sailing, and sailing before the wind are self-explanatory, while to sail near, nigh, or close to the wind may mean either to be economical, or to live up to one’s means. See Plain sailing, sail under false colors.

Sailing orders. Self-explanatory. Ashore it may mean orders to begin anything, or dismissal, jilting.

Sail loft (Pronounced sai’loft). A large open room where sails are manufactured alongshore.

Sailor. This is a much later term than seaman (which in turn was preceded by the now obsolete word shipman). See also Mariner, Jack. Sailor is also somewhat more restricted in meaning, being applied only to foremast hands, and often preceded by the disparaging word common. His own term of disparagement is more vigorous: “a dirty dog and no sailor.” See Holy sailor.

A man adept at knots, splices and the like is a marlinespike sailor—one who practices “sailorizing,” which is making sea fancywork. “Joshaway made me this lamp mat; he’s a master hand at sailorizing.” See Scrimshaw.

Salleeman. See Portygee.

Salt, an old. An old sailor, but probably a shore name from the beginning. When sailors use it, you can hear quotation marks around it. See Mattalow, Shellback.

Salted down. A fisherman’s phrase, taken into shore speech to mean saved or hoarded. “I imagine he’s got a nice little pile salted down.”

Salt horse, Salt junk. See Horse.

Salvage. In admiralty law, a claim on the value of a vessel and cargo abandoned at sea, by another vessel that has brought them to safety. In shore speech, it is applied to worn-out or discarded material which can be worked over into something of value (very familiar through the recent war salvage drives).

Samshoo. Ardent spirits of any kind; pidgin English brought home by sailors.

Sangaree. Spanish sangria; a West Indian drink of spiced and sweetened wine, introduced by sailors and now used by shore people.

Sargasso Sea. An imaginary region of the sea, known only in the literature of the land (although sailors may have been responsible for starting the yarn) where derelict ships float on through the ages. Actually, the Sargasso Sea is a region of the central Atlantic where, through some peculiarity of currents, floating drift-weed accumulates in large fields, which, however, are entirely navigable.

Savvy. Spanish sabe, via pidgin English, brought home by sailors. He savvy plenty (got plenty savvy) means he is shrewd; no savvy is I don’t know; no savvy nothing means that the person spoken of is a fool.

Scanderoon. A kind of carrier pigeon; it received its name from Iscanderun, a Syrian seaport whence news of the arrival of vessels was transmitted to Aleppo by pigeon post.

Scandihoovian. A later name for a squarehead, q.v.

Scarf, Scarph. A carpenter’s term for a joint made by beveling and bolting together two pieces of wood in such a way as not to increase the thickness. The name and the process were the invention of ship carpenters.

Schooner. (Probably a Dutch word originally.) The name of a fore-and-aft rig; but landspeople tend to apply it to anything under sail. Alongshore, schooner-rigged means rather poorly dressed. See Square-rigged; also Just. The heavy glass beer mug called a schooner may come from the nautical word, but it is difficult to imagine how.

Scoop. To shovel, spoon, or ladle. This was originally a nautical word taken over from the Dutch, like dredge, q.v. All shore uses of the word come from its use at sea.

Scoot. From the Dutch schuyt, to sail fast. Originally a sea word, this is now completely a shore colloquialism. It survives alongshore as “skite,” with an approximation of its original Dutch pronunciation. “I’ll have to skite along now; it’s time the mail was out.”

Scowegian. A late name for a Swede; see Squarehead.

Scrimshaw. Fancy articles carved from bone or ivory, usually by whalemen on long voyages, and found on every ’longshore whatnot. British seamen call it scrim-shander-work.

Scud. This originally referred to the running of a hare; it soon became chiefly nautical, meaning to run directly before a heavy wind with scarcely any sail set, or under bare poles. Whether its shore use, to mean running very fast while bent over near the ground, comes from the sea use, or goes back to the hare, is not known.

Scull. To propel a boat by means of a single oar at the stern. Alongshore, to scull around is to be busy in a somewhat aimless fashion. How the term got transferred to the scoop-shaped oars used by racing oarsmen is not clear.

Scuppers. Outlets through the bulwarks for water from the deck. Alongshore, full to the scuppers means intoxicated. “There’ll be blood in the scuppers,” a term not unknown to landspeople, predicts violence of some sort. The British scuppered, meaning killed, wiped out, probably comes in some obscure way from the idea of a ship sunk till her scuppers are awash, when nothing can save her.

Scurvy. A disease due to vitamin deficiency which used to rage on shipboard. The disease is now rarely seen, but the word persists as a disparaging term in shore speech, a “scurvy trick.”

Scuttle. (1) A hatch cover, particularly one that closes with a lid sliding in grooves.

(2) To sink a ship intentionally, by those on board. This may be a criminal act, or one perfectly legitimate, as when it is necessary to put out a fire in the cargo when in port. In its shore use, meaning to destroy wantonly and from self-interest something that should have been preserved, only the unsavory aspect has been retained.

Scuttle butt. A cask of drinking water equipped with a scuttle, which stood on the deck of old-time vessels for the convenience of the crew. It was a good place to exchange views, as men waited their turn; hence scuttle butt, meaning rumor and gossip, a term which has been revived recently in our Navy, and is attaining some currency in shore slang.

“Between you and me and the scuttle butt” is the seafaring equivalent of the landsman’s “between you and me and the bedpost.” See Tom Cox, Windlassbitts.

Scylla and Charybdis, between. A shore phrase, meaning amid insurmountable difficulties, on the horns of a dilemma. It refers to the classical legend of a rock and a whirlpool opposed to each other in the narrow Strait of Messina, each haunted by its appropriate demon, which lurked there to make their prey any unwary mariner who ventured near them.

Sea, the. As with ocean, q.v., the sailor avoids the general use of “the sea.” In nautical dialect, only ships, never persons, put to sea. A person goes to sea, or follows the sea as a career. “Who wouldn’t sell a farm and go to sea?” is the seaman’s sarcastic comment during a gale of wind, but, in the language of one old sailor, “he fergits it the first fine day.”

Alongshore, a common expression is in all my goin’ to sea, meaning in all my experience. Many shore phrases make use of the way of a ship upon the sea, such as all at sea, a sea of troubles, and “betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea.” For sea meaning wave, see Breakers, Ship (3).

Sea bag. A sack of sewn canvas, used by sailors and lumbermen as a substitute for a trunk.

Sea biscuit. A very hard cracker. See Hardtack.

Sea boat. A ship’s quality of performance in heavy weather, and how well she rides out storms, is expressed in the phrases a good sea boat and a bad sea boat.

Seaboots. Hip-length rubber waders, used at sea and alongshore. A face like a seaboot is one much wrinkled and gnarled.

Sea chest. A wooden box, larger at the bottom than at the top, in common use alongshore as well as at sea.

Sea cook. See Son of a sea cook.

Sea-glin or glen. A light spot on the horizo...