Famous Expressions that came from Sailing.....

[Captain Teague]

"Son of a Gun"
Phrase comes from the practice of sailors in port "wooing" their girlfriends in the relative privacy of the gun deck (often over one of the titular guns). The children (at least the males) born of these unions were called "Son of a Gun", as the identity of the father was not usually known (as many of these women were ladies of the evening).

That is what I read (years ago), anyway. I would have researched it before posting, but I am feeling lazy while actually being busy.
_________________
The Code is the Law.

[Salty Dog]

“By and Large”
Folks say this one all the time to refer to the big picture. “By and large, ASA is the most awesome organization in existence”… something like that. This term got started on a sailboat with the word “by” meaning into the wind and “large” meaning off the wind. So sailors would say: “By and large this ship handles quite nicely.”

[Salty Dog]

[Salty Dog]

“Loose cannon”
Everyone has known a few people who are loose cannons – unpredictable and dangerous on some level. Not surprisingly the term comes from when a ship’s cannon would come loose from it’s lashing. The big dangerous thing would be sliding all over the place making for some uncomfortable time on deck trying to get that bad boy back in its spot.

[Captain Teague]

[Mr. Blue]

[Salty Dog]

“A square meal”
People often talk about getting three “square meals” a day…what the hell is a square meal? It’s actually quite simple – the wooden plates back in the days of tall ships were square.

[Salty Dog]

“Hand over fist”
These days this phrase usually refers to making a bunch of money, although it can refer to anything happening fast and in abundance. It comes from a more literal origin – sailors would be tugging at lines as fast as they could, hand over fist, to trim sheets and raise sails.

[Roland]

[Mr. Blue]

Going to the dogs.

Originally, "gone to by sea dogs." When sailors arrived in port, there was a lot of drinking, gambling, fighting, and general lowering of the social and moral tone. Hence, the town had "gone to the dogs." When the sailors left again, people who had worked hard entertaining them, such as bar tenders, were said to be "dog tired."

The chances of this being correct is probably less than one percent, but I like it.
_________________
" ... the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. " George Eliot

[Salty Dog]

'A shot across the bows' derives from the naval practice of firing a cannon shot across the bows of an opponent's ship to show them that you are prepared to do battle. The first mention of it I can find in print is this piece from the Wisconsin Democrat, December 1939, reprinted from the UK paper The London Metropolitan:


"In a very brief space we neared our victim, a large merchantman, whose appearance promised at once an easy conquest and a rich booty. At a signal from Stamar, a shot was fired across her bows to bring her to. She immediately hoisted a white flag."

[Salty Dog]

Batten Down the Hatches

True Meaning:
Prepare for trouble.

Origin:

Batten down the hatchesIn his recent (September 2012) song Tempest, which recounts the story of the Titanic's sinking, Bob Dylan uses the lines:


They battened down the hatches
But the hatches wouldn't hold

This has caused a couple of correspondents to write to me asking what 'batten down' means. Many people may know what 'batten down the hatches' means, but some clearly don't, so here goes...

'Hatch' is one of those words with dozens of meanings in the dictionary. In this case we are looking at the 'opening in the deck of a ship' meaning. Ships' hatches, more formally called hatchways, were commonplace on sailing ships and were normally either open or covered with a wooden grating to allow for ventilation of the lower decks. When bad weather was imminent, the hatches were covered with tarpaulin and the covering was edged with wooden strips, known as battens, to prevent it from blowing off. Not surprisingly, sailors called this 'battening down'.

The above was explained, probably better than I just have, in the definitive record of history of nautical language, Admiral W H Smyth’s 1867 encyclopaedia The Sailor’s Word Book. He calls it 'battening of the hatches' but it is clearly the same expression:


“Battens of the hatches: Long narrow laths serving by the help of nailing to confine the edges of the tarpaulins, and keep them close down to the sides of the hatchways in bad weather.”

[Salty Dog]

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Meaning

In difficulty, faced with two dangerous alternatives.

Origin

The phrase was originally 'Between the Devil and the deep sea' (and sometimes 'the Dead Sea' or 'the Red Sea'). The sea turned blue much later and the phrase became well-known via the title of a popular song Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, written by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen, and recorded by Cab Calloway in 1931

What's the source of the original phrase? Well, we would really like to know. CANOE, the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything, would have us believe that it has a nautical origin (well, they would wouldn't they?). In her book 'When a loose cannon flogs a dead horse there's the devil to pay' Olivia Isil unambiguously attributes a nautical origin to the phrase, albeit without providing any evidence for that.

Set against that there's the explanation that this is from the usual meaning of Devil, that is, the supreme spirit of evil. If it's that Devil we are talking about then the origin is straightforward - the Devil is bad and falling in the deep sea is bad, so when being caught between the two would be cause for concern.

Between the Devil and the deep blue seaPeople who like that explanation can point back to Greek mythology for an earlier version of the idea of being caught between evil and the sea. Homer's Odyssey refers to Odysseus being caught between Scylla (a six-headed monster) and Charybdis (a whirlpool).

To explain the nautical theory we'll need to define some sailing terminology. That's always dangerous ground for landlubbers and usually results in some horny-handed sailing type writing in to say that I don't know my scuppers from my square knots, but here goes anyway...


"Devil - the seam which margins the waterways on a ship's hull".

This definition is from Admiral Henry Smyth's invaluable Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, 1867. That definition wasn't entirely clear to me, but a correspondent who describes himself as 'an engineer and vessel constructor' clarified it this way:


"Devil - the seam between the deck planking and the topmost plank of the ship's side".

This seam would need to be watertight and would need filling (caulking) from time to time. On a ship at sea this would presumably require a sailor to be suspended over the side, or at least to stand at the very edge of the deck. Either way it is easy to see how that might be described as 'between the devil and the deep sea'.

Incidentally, another term for filling a seam is 'paying'. Those that like nautical origins also give this as the source for the Devil to pay, although the evidence is against them on that one.

The first recorded citation of 'the Devil and the deep sea' in print is in Robert Monro's His expedition with the worthy Scots regiment called Mac-keyes, 1637:


"I, with my partie, did lie on our poste, as betwixt the devill and the deep sea."

The seafaring theory is plausible, but does it hold water? Was the nautical term 'devil' in use when the phrase was coined? We've no evidence to show the word in that context until over two hundred years after the first sighting of the phrase. If the phrase really does pre-date the word then the nautical derivation is clearly incorrect. The onus falls on the nautical believers to provide the evidence - and I'm not holding my breath on that.

CANOE doesn't quite convince with this one. On balance it seems wise to stay on dry land and stick with the Devil we know

[Salty Dog]

Anchors Aweigh

Meaning

Said in preparation of getting underway, especially of a ship.

Origin

Left quote
'Aweigh', not 'away'.
right quoteThere is some doubt in the public mind as to how this phrase should be spelled. Internet searches for 'anchors away' bring up many thousands of hits. The correct spelling is 'anchors aweigh'. As with other frequently seen misspellings, like 'baited breath' and 'just desserts', the 'away' version does make some intuitive sense. The supposed shout of 'anchors away' fits well with the image of ropes being cast off and the anchor being hoisted as a ship prepares to sail away across the sea. There's some justification for assuming the 'away' spelling, as the first known usage of the term in print comes from John Smith's A Sea Grammar, 1627, in which Smith uses that form:


'What is the Anchor away?'

Anchors aweighThe meaning of the word was nevertheless not the current 'away - removed to a distance', but rather the 'aweigh - being weighed' meaning.

The word 'aweigh' or, as it was often spelled in early citations, 'a-weigh', is now only used in this little phrase. An anchor that is aweigh is one that has just begun to put weight onto the rope or chain by which it is being hauled up. Sailors were fond of adding 'a' to words to make new ones, for example, 'astern', 'aboard', ashore', 'afloat', 'adrift', 'aground', etc.

'A-weigh' is synonymous with the old and now defunct terms 'a-peak' and 'a-trip'. 'A-peak' was the Anglicized version of the French 'a pic', that is, vertical. It is easy to see why the French chose the word vertical to describe an anchor which was being hauled onboard ship. 'A-trip' just meant 'about to be underway', that is, 'on a trip'. This wasn't only reserved for anchors; 'a-trip' was a general sailing term that was used for anything that was about to begin.

Admiral William Henry Smyth, in his nautical dictionary The Sailor's Word-Book, 1867, listed this entry for 'A-trip':


"The anchor is a-trip, or a-weigh, where the purchase has just made it break ground, or raised it clear. Sails are a-trip when they are hoisted from the cap [a thick block of wood], sheeted home, and ready for trimming"...

and for 'Apeek':


"A ship drawn directly over the anchor is apeek"...

The earliest known citation that refers to an anchor being 'aweigh' is in an exchange between two characters in John Dryden's The Tempest, 1670:


Trincalo: Is the Anchor a Peek?
Stephano: Is a weigh! is a weigh.

Anchors Aweigh - FilmThe song Anchors Aweigh was composed by Charles A. Zimmerman in 1906 with lyrics written by Alfred Hart Miles. It was adopted as the official song of the United States Navy:


Stand Navy down the field, sails set to the sky.
We'll never change our course, so Army you steer shy-y-y-y.
Roll up the score, Navy, Anchors Aweigh.
Sail Navy down the field and sink the Army, sink the Army Grey.

Anchors Aweigh was also a popular musical comedy film of 1945, starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.

[Roland]