Language From the Sea, Still Fresh After Centuries

( sound : Seagulls, transport horn )

AA : I ‘m Avi Arditti, with Rosanne Skirble, and this workweek on Wordmaster — the catch of the day, terms from the sea.

Lots of nautical expressions have washed ashore into casual English. Alan Hartley researches them for the Oxford English Dictionary — that is, when he ‘s not supervising the load of grain onto foreign ships in the Great Lakes. We called him at his office in Minnesota, and immediately made headway.

ALAN HARTLEY : “ When you make ‘headway, ‘ you ‘re making progress ahead. ‘Way ‘ is normally the forward motion of a ship. It could besides be rear motion, and that was called ‘sternway. ‘ But there are a bunch of analogous terms in English that never made it into the general vocabulary. ‘Headway ‘ and ‘sternway ‘ are a good model of a pair, one of which made it and the other did n’t. ‘ ”

AA : nautical metaphors lend themselves to all kinds of situations on state. Let ‘s say you ‘re making headroom on that large project at work, going “ full steam ahead. ” It ‘s all “ polish seafaring ” toward that bad promotion. Or so it seems.

All of a sudden you ‘re “ weathering a storm. ” You reach the “ end of your rope ” ( anchor lasso, that is ). You look for “ safe seaport. ” You “ go overboard ” to make things better. The concluding thing you want is to “ scuttle ” your career and wind up “ on the rocks, ” all because you ‘ve “ run afoul ” of the foreman.

ALAN HARTLEY : “ If you encountered another ship unintentionally, you got besides close to it, possibly you got tangled in its anchor cable, in that lawsuit you have ‘run afoul ‘ of the other ship and had an accident, basically. ”

AA : “ And today we might talk about to ‘run afoul of the law. ‘ ”

ALAN HARTLEY : “ sure, precisely. It ‘s a identical typical lawsuit of the extension into everyday English. And it shows that, you know, the word would be kicking around in nautical use for a few decades and gradually it would be picked up in general use. ”

RS : “ Some of these words I find interesting because I did n’t even know that they were nautical words. ”

ALAN HARTLEY : “ same for me. ‘High and dry, ‘ for exemplify, is something you say all the clock. A transport got stuck on the mud flats or on a reef, the tide went out and the embark was left high and dry. ”

RS : “ well, here ‘s an expression I never associated with the seas, normally associated with my repair. When I go to the doctor I actually like to come out with a ‘clean bill of health. ‘ ”

ALAN HARTLEY : “ Everybody does. And the gang of an old voyage ship would have felt the lapp way. It did n’t mean quite the same thing then, but a ship on arriving at a port would have to be cleared by the local port authorities as having no catching disease on board. And once they were cleared they got a ‘clean placard of health. ‘ Sometimes that took a long time. They would be in quarantine, which was a forty-day menstruation. That ‘s where the ‘quarant ‘ comes from. ”

RS : “ Do you have a darling nautical expression ? ”

ALAN HARTLEY : “ The one that ‘s possibly most strike to me is that phrase we use nowadays, the give voice ‘to be taken aback. ‘ A person is taken aback if he is surprised in a veto manner, and that derives from an old sail condition in which if the ship were headed excessively near to the management of the wind, the fart would strike the sails on the forward surface rather of the after — or rear — come on.

“ then if the wind instrument got around excessively much toward the crouch, toward the front of the ship, it could stop you in your tracks. But besides, if you were taken aback hard adequate, you could break the stallion mast that the sail was suspended from. So it was a very dangerous and startle site. ”

AA : Nowadays, do n’t look to the ocean for many new expressions. Alan Hartley points out that we ‘re distillery using by and large terms from the days of sailing ships.

ALAN HARTLEY : “ A bunch of the vocabulary that ‘s developed since then is very technical, very specific to modern ships. It has very little application in casual biography. ”

AA : Alan Hartley is a ship-loading superintendent in Minnesota and a research worker for the Oxford English Dictionary. He ‘s put together a number of nautical speech for our web site. That address is voanews.com/wordmaster. And our electronic mail address is news @ voanews.com

Time to set sail ! With Rosanne Skirble, I ‘m Avi Arditti.

( MUSIC : “ Across the Sea ” /Bobby Darin )
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primitively broadcast August 2002

Words That Have Made Their means from nautical Language
into Everyday English

Alan H. Hartley, August 2002

( Note of explanation : 1666||1681 means that FIRST-RATE was, according to the 2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, inaugural recorded in nautical habit in 1666 and in general use in 1681. The average slowdown between first nautical appearance and first general use is more than 100 years, but, as that includes some odd cases with very long gaps, I ‘d be inclined to say alternatively that it ‘s normally a count of “ a few decades ”. )

Before proceeding to sea, the gang will BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES in order to prevent flooding below decks that might cause the ship to FOUNDER ( 1600||1613 ).

A transport barely leaving its moorings GETS UNDER WAY ( 1743||1822 ) : way is the forward ( or sometimes back ) motion of a ship. If the ship continues on its desire class, it will MAKE HEADWAY ( 1748||1775 ), the ship ‘s bow being called the head. ( The analogous nautical condition sternway never made it into democratic english : we prefer progress to reversals. ) A ship making a draw of headway will leave a slower one in its WAKE ( 1627||1806 ), the track it leaves in the sea.

A ship that sails well BY AND LARGE ( 1669||1706 ) sails well into ( by ) the wind vitamin a good as with a follow ( large ) tip, that is, under most conditions. A ship that sails very well by the wind can stay ALOOF ( 1532||1583 ) from ( upwind of ) other vessels. It will sail best if it is about ON AN EVEN KEEL, drawing the lapp depth of water along its hale length, quite than being much deeper at the bow or the austere.

To FORGE AHEAD ( 1769||1861 ), to proceed with campaign and determination, probably comes from a common Mediterranean nautical formula meaning ‘to press ahead by coerce of oars or sail ‘ ( cystic fibrosis. italian forza di remo / di vela ).

To FATHOM meant in the first place to measure the body of water ‘s astuteness by the penetrate ( 6 feet ), roughly the span of a man ‘s outstretched arms, and late to understand the astuteness of a subject. bankruptcy to watch the depth carefully might leave the ship HARD AND FAST ( 1867||1867 ) aground, and possibly even HIGH AND DRY ( 1822||1838 ) when the tide goes out.

A embark may wait IN THE OFFING ( 1627||1779 ), or off-shore, if it is inconvenient or dangerous to approach the coast. At night or in unfavorable upwind ( to WEATHER A STORM ), a embark might stand ON AND OFF the coast, that is, take a zigzag course alternately toward and away from the seashore, giving the dangerous shore a WIDE BERTH ( 1829||1829 ) and assuring adequate LEEWAY ( 1669||1827 ), or board to maneuver, if the hoist starts to blow the transport toward the lee land. Jogging on and off requires the ship to make a leg in one focus and then TAKE A DIFFERENT TACK, a course different with respect to the focus of the tip.

Masts and other spars and rigging may GO BY THE BOARD ( 1630||1859 ), or GO OVERBOARD, by an accident at sea. By the display panel immediately refers to something no longer in effect : “ those regulations have gone by the control panel. ”

The main-mast might go by the circuit board if the enemy—like a FIRST-RATE ( 1666||1681 ) man-of-war of 100 guns, firing a BROADSIDE ( 1597||1833 ) that raked the embark FROM STEM TO STERN ( 1627||1842 ) —shot away the MAIN-STAY ( 1485||1787, Thomas Jefferson ). The main-stay is the intemperate rope leading down and forward that supports the main-mast. It might be necessary to JURY-RIG a excess mast, that is, set it up temporarily until the ship could reach a interface where proper repairs could be made.

In rig, it wo n’t do to use JUNK ( 1485||1842 ), honest-to-god or subscript rope. The word credibly comes from Old French jonc, a rope made of rushes ( such a rope being weak and inferior ) ; compare with jonquil, a plant with leaves shaped like those of the rush.

price to ship or cargo is legally called AVERAGE ( 1491||1735 ), which is derived ultimately from an Arabic give voice for damaged goods. The damages had to be distributed equitably, or averaged, among those owning interests in the ship or cargo.

Maneuvering in CLOSE QUARTERS ( 1753||1809 ), one ship might well RUN AFOUL ( 1809||1824 ) of another. FENDERS ( 1626||1919, U.S. ), made of such things as old lasso, serve to protect a ship during contact with a dock or another ship.

The fly will SEE HOW THE LAND LIES ( 1700||1809 ) and use LANDMARKS ( 1570||1667 ) —distinctive features on shore—to keep the ship in the indicate channel, or FAIRWAY ( 1854||1910, in golfing ), and STEER CLEAR of obstructions. ( In hapless visibility, as in showery or HAZY ( 1615||1665 ) weather, the pilot program might LOSE HIS BEARINGS. )

A river-boat might HIT A SNAG ( 1804, Lewis and Clark||1829 ), which is an old tree-trunk or branch forming a dangerous obstruction .