What's poopy about a poop deck? | NAUTICAL ETYMOLOGY
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- Welcome, me hearties, to another episode of Words Unravelled. In this edition, Rob and Jess discuss nautical terms and pirate slang.
💩 What's so poopy about a poop deck?
🏴☠️ What does it mean to "shiver" someone's timbers?
⚓️ Which English idioms come from the high seas?
Find out in Words Unravelled!
👂LISTEN: podfollow.com/words-unravelle...
or search for "Words Unravelled" wherever you get your podcasts.
==LINKS==
Video about nautical idioms that Rob mentioned: • 8 Sailing Expressions ...
Rob's TH-cam channel: / robwords
Jess' Useless Etymology blog: uselessetymology.com/
Rob on X: x.com/robwordsyt
Jess on TikTok: tiktok.com/@jesszafarris
#etymology #pirates #English
Rob here! Two things:
1) I suggested the poop deck was at the bow of the ship. It's at the stern.
2) I keep saying "boat" when naval types will point out it should be "ship".
Apologies. Three strikes, and I be walking the plank.
Funnily enough, the crew would stick their booties over the bow to poop into the sea. No connection at all to the poopdeck, or any toilet paper sheets to the wind, but a fun fact 😂
@@AhoyGame Good tip for the next time I'm on the Channel ferry.
R
Getting "pooped" on an old ship was to have a wave from a following sea crash onto the poop deck and sometimes flood the ship...
In French there's a similar word: poupe referring to the back of the ship. The front is called the proue.
@@steeveletur1983 English "prow".
Poop deck is the rearmost deck on a ship. It derives from the French word poupe meaning stern. The poop rail is the railing at the front of that deck. The poop lantern is the lantern hung at the back of the ship. The poop ladder is the stairs leading up to that deck. Getting pooped means a following sea is breaking over the stern of the ship; a very undesirable condition to be in. A poop ornament is a decoration on the taffrail at the stern in the vicinity of the poop deck.
What Rob was referring to is called the ships head, at the bow or the front of the ship. It takes it's name for the head timbers which make up the structure of the bow. His confusion comes from the fact that this was also the location of the 'seats of ease' that were the toilet facilities for the crew. To this day the toilets on a ship are called the head.
The POOP DECK is the deck at the STERN of the ship. The deck in the front is the fo'castle (Fore Castle) the elevated portion of the deck at the bow.
Originally Fore castle and after castle as mediaeval ships built like castles so bowmen could shoot down.
On a ship, the toilet is called a "head" because it is at the head of the ship where the ship's crew would be and there would often be a place to pee there. The "poop deck" is one of the lower main decks near the stern where they would empty the poop buckets over the side. If the "poop deck" was at the head of the ship, the poop would leave "skid marks" along the side of the ship.
The term "poop deck" comes from the French word la poupe, which means "stern" and comes from the Latin word puppis. In sailing ships, the poop deck was usually the elevated roof of the stern or "after" cabin, also known as the "poop cabin" or simply the poop. Poop decks were mainly found on ships during the Age of Sail and were located in the rear superstructure of the ship
In Spanish a 'corsario' is someone who carried a 'patente de corso', which is the letter that showed they had authorization to act as a privateer. In English I think the 'patente de corso' is called a called 'letter of marque'
I really thought they'd go there... they never really addressed that term, merely mentioned it.
Seems both "corsair" and "patente de corso" come originally from Latin "cursus" meaning course (among other things), which gave "cursarius" meaning a pirate. That went on to French as "corsaire", which was borrowed into English. The name of the island of Corsica is probably unrelated.
Saying you went to uni with Tom Scott is an excellent namedrop!
These two work so well together- lovely conversation.
My favorite is the idiom, "there'll be the devil to pay..." "Paying' was the process of stuffing the cracks between planks with fibrous oakum and tar. Periodically ships would be beached so the crew could 'pay' the cracks from underneath the ship. The worst one to do was the longest, deep underneath along the keel. It's the longest seam and directly over your head so hot tar would drip on you as you went along it. This seam was nicknamed, 'the devil' because it was such a arduous one to seal up.
So if you were on the bosun's 'bad side', you would be assigned this job. So getting caught by the bosun screwing up and "there'll be the devil to pay..." in your future.
As far as I know what you say is from the longer phrase "The devil to pay and no pitch hot" and surprisingly has nothing (or little) to do with the shorter "The devil to pay"
@@lordofthe6string Interesting, do you have some more information? Would love to read more about this (and other sayings derived from nautical terms).
perhaps too the phrase, 'between the devil and the deep blue sea.'
Doing the parrot voice was the right choice in my opinion.
So are parrot and pirate cognate?
There are so many more ...
Three square meals a day - British sailors ate their meals off square wooden trays.
Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey - cannon balls were stored on brass monkeys, brass and iron contract at different rates as the temperature drops.
Flotsam and Jetsam - Flotsam: debris from a shipwreck Jetsam: debris deliberately jettisoned.
In the Doldrums - the area of sea close to the equator where often the wind is lacking -ships are often "be stilled".
Pipe down - Signal from the boson's pipe for the sailors to retire below decks to their hammocks.
The "brass monkeys" bit has been debunked. "square meals" possibly debunked too.
Brass monkey likely does not derive from this, the wikipedia page has a section. It instead probably came from literal small brass monkey ornaments that were popular souvenirs in the 19c/20c.
Square simply has an old meaning of even or solid. It's just like saying 'a good meal'; nothing to do with tray shapes.
Jetsam is a nice one because it comes from the same origin as 'jettison', meaning to throw overboard.
'In the doldrums' meant being in a slump before it pertained to sailing. Deriving from 'dull', it just means that spirits are low and there is nothing exciting happening, and then a misunderstanding probably led to people misinterpreting windless areas as being 'the Doldrums'.
@ianhadley492 ... I suffered a similar fate here last time... Years ago, pre-web, many urban myths had fact status. A 1960s book confidently asured me newspapers originally had N, E, W and S printed on the page margins like compass points. Maybe someone did that as a gimmick, but it wasn't the origin. Confident but erroneous word origins abounded--and we believed them. With more scholarship brought to bear, old assumptions teeter and fall. I'm scared to quote anything definitively. Even Robb often starts these comments with a correcting paragraph. Like good scientists, we have to bough to new findings and abandon our old theories.
The devil to pay .. .. Longest seam in the keel of a boat is the devil. Pay comes from pitch -- to put pitch and oakum in the seams.
@@uesbob Not quite - the devil was the seam between the edge of the deck and the hull (hence also "between the devil and the deep blue sea"). Wooden hulls flexed a lot so the caulking in the devil would work loose and need replacing frequently. The full saying is "the devil to pay and only half a bucket of tar.
Hilarious watching Rob blush as he explained the current meaning of "to roger".
He also blushed at “booty.”
@@georgefrench1907 Rob starts blushing as soon as he sees Jess 😍
It was fascinating to see how many different shades of red Rob's face can take on.☺️
A nautical term in wide common use is "aboveboard," which means 'honest." It's from the practice of pirate crews hiding below the gunwales (sideboards) of their ship as they approached another ship to maintain the advantage of surprise. Law-abiding crews had no reason to conceal themselves when in view of another ship; they were all "aboveboard."
Every time Rob says boat when he means ship hundreds of sailors are shouting at the screen!
Ahem, slang.
I think that's standard talk for sailors. I even once heard a naval officer refer to a sub as a boat😂
a ship needs 3 masts... else it's a boat.
@@wilsonfamily1762 No, else it is a brig, brigantine, bark/barque, barkentine/barquentine, schooner, et cetera, et cetera. Incidentally, a ship must also be square-rigged.
In modern parlance, a ship is a large commercial or military vessel. The term "ship" no more applies to a square rigger, in this day and age, than "frigate" or "sloop" do.
@@docclabo6350 A ship is at least 24 meters of length. However a U-boat is always a boat.
My favorite is "leeway" -- the allowance a navigator must make because the wind will push the boat off its point of sail towards the leeward (downwind) side. Thus you must set a point of sail more upwind to actually hit your mark, and the correction you make to your point of sail is called leeway.
And every sailing ship has its own leeway, even though built to the same design.
You left out the Head. Sailors going to the head, were going to the most forward part of the ship to relieve themselves. The poop is the deck above a cabin, which is generally at the rear. A quick Google search says it comes from the French La Poupe or stern.
Another cabin on old ships was in the crews quarters in the forecastle (pronounced foc'sle and is all the way forward. To go to the head is to climb over the foc'sle into the chains where flushing sprays of seawater are quite regularly experienced. Bear in mind there was no toilet paper in those days:)
The forecastle is from the medieval times when the front of the ship was like a Fort where the sailors would fight. Look at old engravings of medieval ships and it is obvious.
The word _foc's'le_ actually is a rare contraction with two apostrophes.
Coincidentally, the head is where I go to think!
@@azoic6 Think or stink or both?
Hope there was some soap and a towel!!
These two have to be among the most charming and likable people on the Interwebs!
A ton of nautical terms - especially parts of boats and sails, types of boats as well of features around shipping and shorelines come from the Dutch:
keel, shore, jib, ketch, bow, yacht, schooner, aboard, sail, avast, berm, boom, frigate, leak, pump, rudder, scow, maelstrom, ship, skipper, freight, captain, buoy, plug, bulwark,
My favorite unexpectedly nautical etymology is the Afrikaans word for kitchen, kombuis. It's the Dutch word for galley.
The theory is that Europeans who learned Dutch on ships on their way to Cape Town came to know the place where the food is made as the "kombuis", so they started using it as the word for kitchen.
Fantastic! Thanks for this.
I'd love for @RobWords to try to pronounce "kombuis."
Russian nautical terms are predominantly of Dutch origin bc Peter the Great learned seafaring in the Netherlands. Kombuis in the form of 'kambuz' is widely used in the contemporary Russian.
Kombuis reminds me of words like commissary, comestible, the Spanish word "comer" (appetite), cuisine, and combo platter. (Just kidding about that last one. 😛)
Port also means "carry" or "transport", so we're back to "loading side".
Porter. Portage. Portable.
Strictly speaking 'porter' and 'port' derives from the Latin 'portus' meaning a 'doorway'. It then came into French language and into English via the Normans. A porter was originally a slave that guarded the doorway of a villa and accepted arriving goods. Thus a sea port is a 'doorway to the sea'. Up until the early 1800's British and English-speaking mariners would call the left side of a vessel the 'larboard' and the right side of the vessel the starboard. This derives from the Old Norse 'Lackboard' and 'Steerboard'. Because the steering oar was traditional placed on the right side and the left side 'lacked' one.
'Port' did not come into common nautical use until the late 1700' or early 1800's. I suspect this is because large vessels by this time were commonly equipped with an 'entry port' or doorway in the hull at the main deck level that made boarding the vessel easier for women and civilians in general. Certainly it was expected that true 'Jack tars' would climb the side to the upper bulwark rather than use the 'port' which was reserved for 'land lubbers' , Ladies and Admirals.
Tradition meant that the left side of vessel was set to the dock or landward. Thus the 'entry port' was always on the left. This entry port is clearly visible on HMS Victory in Portsmouth Naval Dockyard.
'
So 'Port' only came into common use to mean 'left' in the 1800's and is probably linked to the very large high-sided Warships and 'Indiamen' of the period and the frequent passenger transports between the UK and India in the post-Napoleonic War expansion of the British Empire.
Port is passed to the left, and Starbucks is passed in the mall.
As in portage, specifically meaning to take a boat out of the water of a river when it becomes too rough, then carry it to a place where the river is calm.
There's a rich tradition of 'Jackspeak' - sailor slang - in the UK. One that's always stuck with me is the expression 'getting off at Fratton'. Fratton is the last train station before Portsmouth Docks and the phrase is a euphemism for Coitus Interruptus.
Not sure if it's been mentioned, but the word 'leeway' meaning to give someone a certain amount of freedom, apparantly comes from the nautical term 'leeway' meaning heo drift of a ship away from the wind, or leeward.
What’s most enjoyable is how nerdy you two get when discussing English language history. 😊
Well, "Boy Howdy!', I've finally found my people. Having such a fun and informative vehicle for etymology makes me as happy as a gopher in soft dirt. Thank you both for your time, effort, and energy devoted to Words Unravelled.
Rob we still say “toe the line” in the military today - usually at 4am when you just want to sleep.
Cool!
Happy to hear it's still in use today. I recall it well from the 1980s, but most of what I recall from the era is ancient history today. The equipment is pretty much all just in museums, and sometimes I think I should be.
5:21 I favor the theory that port for left comes from the side of the ship that's next to the dock. One can grasp the logic by studying the details of Viking ships, which survive today thanks to ship burials from the 8th century. The rudder or "steer board" of a Viking ship is attached to the hull by way of a cunningly crafted ball-and-socket joint carved entirely from wood. It's obvious that the rudder was both vital and expensive. The ship was uncontrollable without it, and not everyone had the skill and tools to construct it. Compared to the hull the steer-board was fragile. It needed to be protected. Consequently, no Viking captain worthy of the rank would tie up his ship so that the steer-board could impact the pier. Thus the left side of the ship was the side always next to the pier when docked. Port as in "door" doesn't make sense as a name for the left side of a ship because early vessels like Viking ships had no doors or portholes. To load or unload the ship, just step over the gunnels.
I wonder if it comes from the word “portage” which means to carry something - like “lug” and “luggage”. Both words sound like they come from French.
...additionally, I remember which side is starboard which is most people's stronger arm for steering, so starboard is the right hand side when facing the bow of a ship.
Poop deck: The name comes from the after deck section on Roman ships, (puppim - pronounced “poo-pim”) where small statues or sacred images (puppis - meaning dool or statue) of gods were kept.
Poop is the raised section to give more room over the cabin and is in the rear of the ship, not the front. The front is the fo'castle (forecastle) with the obvious derivation.
My mother was born and raised in Alberta, Canada in the 1920s. When I was young, she used to call me a Scallywag when I was doing something impish. I don't recall hearing the word since my childhood. Thanks for brining back some fond memories!
In Ireland, scallywag was/is often used for naughty/mischievous children. I would tell my dogs they were a scallywag for naughty/mischievous behaviour. I definitely heard/used the word a lot here. I honestly thought it was an Irish thing.
@@doratheexplorer1184
Well, my mother's family came from Ireland to Canada in 1820, so that's probably how she learned it.
@@doratheexplorer1184 and I thought it was a synonym for whippersnapper. 😅
@@doratheexplorer1184We still use scallywag in the same context in Australia 👍
Living in Malaysia some years ago, a passenger in my car told me to "gostan." I asked him what that meant in English and he somewhat indignantly said "that is English." It's a shortened version of go astern - a phrase which Malaysians always use instead of go backwards. [paul]
That's interesting. A friend of mine from Myanmar was learning English from a Burmese teacher, here in Bangkok. One day she asked me if "overmorrow" was a real world. I was about to say no, but decided to do a quick search, and discovered that it's a word that hasn't been published in English Dictionaries since 1914 as it had fallen out of favour. It comes from the German Ubermorgen, and, quite logically, means "the day after tomorrow". I found it interesting that this fossil word had survived from the former empire. No doubt Malaysia has some similar words that survived. I've been trying to get people to revive "overmorrow" as we never replaced it with a single word.
In the US, we say “back up” in that situation. Is that the term that’s also used in the UK?
The directional line on a nautical compass is called the "lubber line."
Cat out of the bag refers to removing the cat o’ nine tails before flogging. 12:45
Yikes
I read it refers to opening a bag expecting a pig bought from market and discovering it is a (less desirable) cat instead.
"Let the cat out of the bag" means to reveal a secret or deception.
@@CliffSedge-nu5fv I bought a pig in a poke, but my husband let the cat out of the bag and beat me with it nine times.
And I heard that the phrase "has the cat got your tongue?" means to be unable to talk whilst on the receiving end of the cat o’ nine tails, though not necessarily a naval-only term.
'No room to swing a cat' refers to the cat 'o nine tails, which was the whip with nine strands used to flog sailors as punishment.
Re poop-deck/puppis... I've been into astronomy since I was a kid, so I knew that the huge S Hemisphere constellation of Argo Navis ("the Ship Argo") has been subdivided into 3 other constellations: Carina (the keel), Vela (the sail) and Puppis (the stern).
Anyone who ever studied Catullus 64 in Latin will recall that •puppis• is Latin for “stern” and (by synecdoche) “ship”. It comes to English by Old French •pupe•.
One of my favourite nautical terms is the boom’s vang on a yacht-the line that holds the boom in place: “boom”, “Dutch for “tree” or “pole” is an etymological cousin of “beam”; “vang” is from the Dutch “to catch”; “yacht”, of course, is from the Dutch for “fast ship”.
'Sheet' is a rope with a very specific purpose - it is the rope that is attached to the free end of a sail, and it controls how taught the sail is, which way it is set.
I was very confused when you talked about the poop deck being at the bow of the ship. All the poop decks I ever heard of were at the stern.
There are so many phrases we have that are derived from sailing and seamanship - you covered quite a few. Others include "swinging the lead" (hanging around doing nothing much), not enough room to swing a cat, tip top and Bristol fashion and so on.
How about "thwart" and "athwart"? A thwart is a seat on a (usually small) boat that is set across the beam of the boat (which reminds me of the phrase "broad in the beam"), and is also a verb - to spoil someone's plans.
Broadside on, of course, is another phrase. Hull down - for something going away from you. Come about. Belay that. Splice the main brace. Heading in the right direction. Keelhaul. On your beam ends. Careen (careening around). And so many more.
And batten down the hatches, meaning to get ready for a storm or a trying experience
I’ve never seen an educated sail, no matter how taut. And “hull down” doesn’t mean a relative direction of sail, but rather that the vessel is far enough away that its hull is below the horizon even though its masts and perhaps other elements of its topsides are still visible - it’s a curvature of the earth thing that can also be extended to things like tanks in reverse slope deployments where only the turret is visible over the crest of a hill.
@@markhamstra1083 Ha - yes, mistype, of course - I meant taut sail. And I know what hull down means, but perhaps didn't describe it well.
Helm's alee!
As others have said, the poop deck is at the stern and the constellation Puppis is the poop deck of the ship Argo.
Also, "Three sheets to the wind" comes from windmills. If they have 3 sails on (windmill sheets are sails while ship sheets are ropes), then the windmill is off balance.
I love how Rob turns purple when he discusses sex
Isn't it adorable? - JZ
Rob, as a retired naval officer, I would like to extend an invitation to join C.A.N.O.E (Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything).
Fore, aft, ahead, astern, & abeam are directions. Bow, stern, & amidships are places. Left, Red, & Port all have fewer letters than Right, Green, & Starboard.
There have been two Union Jacks. The first Union Jack was the current Union Flag (jack) minus the diagonal red cross of Saint Patrick. It was in use 1606 to 1801. The second Union Jack is the current national flag of the United Kingdom.
The primary difference between a pirate and a privateer is that a privateer has been issued a "Letter of Marque and Reprisal" by their government. Unlike piracy, being a Privateer was considered and honorable and patriotic occupation.
More specifically the bitter end is the end of the anchor chain or cable that is attached to the ship.
Scupper! The holes in the side rails that allow water to drain from the deck are called Scuppers. They can be blocked with Scupper plates to keep fish or small children from falling off the deck. To Scupper means to spoil something or discard something.
One correction - "Poop" or rather, the poopdeck is actually at the rear.
It's foreward equivalent could be considered the forecastle, pronounced fo'c'sle :)
Ah, got it! Thanks. I like "forecastle".
Rob
There's an inn called Fo'c'sle in Oblivion on a ship
Puppis is a constellation in the southern Milky Way that is the stern of the ship Argo Navis, which used to be a single constellation but was broken up in the 1700s into Puppis, Carina the Keel, Vela the Sails, and Pyxis the Compass.
(I knew I'd come across 'larboard' before!)
He was thoughtful and grave-but the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"
What on earth was the helmsman to do?
- Fit the Second, the Bellman's Speech -
Lewis Carroll "The Hunting of the Snark" (1876).
Also in Tennysons "The Lotos Eaters"....
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
I have heard the term larboard used in some old movie it TV show as well. Maybe an Erol Flynn movie?
Giving the assembled crew or watch instructions before a departure, a mission, or the day's work was called "telling off the crew".
"Three sheets to the wind" when one of the sails of a four armed windmill is loosed and the whole of the timber built edifice wobbles from the lack of symmetry.
Yes, that's correct, but such disasters only happen when the miller is drunk.
@@michelleeden2272 ...or when a strong wind has ripped the 'sheet' off the frame.
And here I thought that term came from the sport of curling. 😅
I love that you blushed about "roger" robword.
Fun episode for this landlubbing pirate writer. I love that unflappable Jess didn't know about "roger" & the look on Rob's face! Robert Newton's LJS is iconic. That TV show & Robert Shaw's Buccaneers show gave us a lot of todays' modern impression of pirates. The poop section had me very confused. Poop decks are at the back - & I just noticed as I type this that Rob has corrected that in comments. I did learn something... Seems my ancestors transported to America were scallywags both in the 17th- & 19th-century senses.
Fascinating episode! Another is "by and large," which I believe was a sailing term for tacking either with or against the wind, and coming to mean, "given the expected complications...." You did mention "taken aback," as in a foiled tack when wind snapped a sail to the wrong side and pushed the ship back.
I love the "etymology" that can be gleaned from my favorite line in sitcom history. Buccaneer as interpreted in 3rd Rock From The Sun. When Dick is at a Halloween party dressed as a pirate and someone asks him where his buccaneers are. Right here, under my buckin' hat! I know, old joke taking several forms, but they got away with it on TV and that floated my boat.
We definitely need to make lubberwort as euphemism for marijuana a thing.
I support this wholeheartedly. - JZ
There was great debate among the sailors of various cultures. The Jib's primary function was to allow for a greater top speed, and each culture argued that it's jib design was faster (and in differing winds they were all correct).
To like the cut of someones jib. Is to think that they are better suited to do a job.
This is such a fun collaboration. Keep these clips coming please. Love it
Great work. A few notes: my Slovak friends also use "ahoy", in the same sense. A "poop deck" is at the stern, from French/Latin. A timber can be properly shivered by a cannonball. Regarding "port" and "starboard", a rudder mounted to starboard could be damaged if that side were put against a dock, hence keep the other side towards the port.
In Canada, a few decades ago, we started a one-dollar coin nicknamed "a Looney." It was named after a type of duck in the design. Later, a two-dollar coin was introduced which people the "DubLoony."
It never caught on, to my dismay. They call it the twonie. It should be the "dubloon".
Another term worth exploring is “pieces of eight.” In those days, the only coin was a crown, and there were no smaller coins to make change or buy smaller items, so the crown coin was often cut into eight parts, and these “bits” or “pieces of eight” were used as smaller coinage. It’s also where we get “two bits” for a quarter.
Rob!!
I wanted to tell you how I’m enjoying this series just as much as I enjoy Robwords. These videos are just so much fun for a person like myself who was once a Radio DJ, and HAD to be funny on the air! It was my job to play the current hits, but there were a dozen signals that found their way into the market where I was the #1 Josh Dickey in the “afternoon drive” time slot. In fact, the ratings showed that for every listener my competition had, I HAD TWO! In order to pull off a feat like that, one cannot merely play current records. Being good with the language was rather vital, and YOU are out to beat the other stations when there were multiple other stations playing EXACTLY THE SAME MUSIC AS I WAS! Therefore, your facility with the language had everything to do with whether YOU won in the ratings. So, to be able to sound clever on the air, the better you were with the language, the better chance YOU had to be funnier than the next guy. And it was always fun to pretend there was a picture the audience could see (“Oh…I wanted to show you this…” as though you actually could. Silly and fun. By keeping it a mystery as to what was going to happen next, it made the whole thing MUCH more fun for both myself and my listeners!
Square-rigged sailing ships: at sea their horizontal spars are at all different angles as their rectangular sails pull them along with the wind direction. In port, the sails are removed and these spars are neatened up by setting them all perpendicular to the length of the ship, or "all squared away". Also, talking about booty, something that you want that you don't have, in French one usage of the word butine is as a verb for a bee that is pollinating plants, and since flowers need the pollen the bees are providing for reproduction, the flowers are getting uhhhh booty.
A couple of notes:
To my knowledge, it was not considered dishonorable to fly the flag of the "wrong" country unless you actually fought with that flag flying. To fly another flag before a fight is just a "ruse de guerre".
The USA also has a Union Jack, which is a naval flag in the form of the 50-starred blue canton of the National Ensign without the stripes.
A privateer is specifically a ship that has been granted "Letters of marque and reprisal". These were granted by national governments to privately owned ships to give them the right to prosecute war on the nation's behalf. Which makes them more equivalent to a private military contractor than a pirate.
Knot teachers and books keep current several nautical terms, which shouldn't be too much of a surprise: the bitter end of a rope is the free end that you use when tying most knots, a "bight" is a loop in the middle of a rope, a "bowline" (pronounced like the weapon you use to shoot an arrow) is a popular non-slipping knot. (Note that I'm leaving aside the technical differences between rope, line, cable, ....)
I'll also mention "mainstay", which is a specific line holding the mainmast in place on a ship.
Bitter... like the end of a whip, which is what a sheet becomes when it's out of control and attached to a flogging sail. That may be related to why the thread wrap that's often used to keep the bitter end of a line from fraying is called whipping.
There are two ends to a line: the standing end which is attached to something and the bitter end which is loose. If you let a sheet run out to the bitter end, the sheet leaves control and you may have a sheet to wind. So among sailors, if you reach the bitter end things are bad. Now as to the etymology, a hawser's standing end is attached the ship, the bitter end is used to tie the hawser to a bit on dock.
So one of the defining features of a buccaneer compared to other 'pirates' was their land tactics and raids on forts, which were largely abandoned later in the 'Golden Age of Piracy'. Morgan is an excellent example of this with his raids in Panama, although many other exist. Privateers were generally provided with 'Letters of Marque' that gave them legal authority to attack foreign trade by a legitimate government. There's plenty of overlap, but land based attacks are the main thing that defines a buccaneer. The reference to roasting comes from how they would cook while traveling on missions to minimize detection from light and smoke, which they took a preference to while in port thus distinguishing them.
I do love a show which causes me to learn, appreciate the scholarship, and chuckle at your antics, with Jess's eyepatch opening and your both often corny comments. Learning with humor! None better!
This is the show I didn't know I needed! Y'all are both interesting and entertaining! Thank you for doing these!
I love all things language! And I adore this channel. I listen to Rob words, and have recommended it to many . The two of you are so cute together also!
Y'all are a great duo. I really enjoy your content! Thanks for all you do!
Well, you've set me right about landlubber (which I always thought was a corruption of land-lover), and about starboard, which I always thought was the side of the ship away from the lights of the port, where you'd only see stars even when the ship was docked.
A great site. Each discussion uncovers fresh wonders in words.
Glad you've corrected yourself on poop. Jess was right in the Latin origins, I think.
Many other nautical terms you mentioned are still in use in practical seamanship today. The specific lexicon to seafaring (at least in the English speaking world) is substantial. And many terms that might sound "piratey" and archaic to the landlubber, are simply part of shipboard language. I can't vouch for today's navies, but when I served in ships, drinking fountains were called the scuttlebutt. If you called it anything else you'd get assigned extra duty.
24:10 The line on a compass indicating straight ahead (and where you should reading your heading) is called the "lubber('s) line" - supposedly to make reading a compass easier to read for the nautically challenged (a.k.a. "lubbers").
It is wonderful to hear such an intelligent and interesting conversation. Thank you both.
Jolly Roger has the same meaning in British slang today. It would translate to US english as “truly screwed” implying that if you saw that on another ship, you were truly screwed.
The reason for the "starboard" or "steer board" side is opposite of the "port" or "larboard" (loading" side) it that it was preferred to tie a boat up to the quay on the side opposite where the rudder was hung in order to avoid damaging the rudder by accidentally hitting the peer while mooring and unmooring. Also, wave action could cause the boat to crush the rudder between the boat and the peer.
To "roger" is also to affirm, from the radio term "roger" meaning "I acknowledge/accept what you just said." Chiefly used in the phrase "roger that."
In Re: "Shiver me timbers!" look up videos on what happens to ship's timbers when they get hit by a cannon ball. The timbers splinter on impact and the splinters fly everywhere with considerable velocity. A great many battle injuries suffered by sailors of the time (especially gun crews) were from the flying splinters.
Other nautical terms you might have addressed: Loose cannon, son of a gun, not enough room to swing a cat,
I grew up surrounded by naval slang, without knowing. When I moved to another city I found it odd that people couldn't understand my vocab, for example: gash (garbage), scran, grog, ditch (throw something out), chit, buffer, oppo, come adrift, etc.
what do those words mean? (Other than ditch & come adrift). Is 'gash' a noun or a verb?
@@markus717 gash is garbage - I grew up along with all my neighbours, saying that we ‘ditch the gash’ 😀 Grog is any alcoholic drink, when I moved to Australia I was quite surprised to find it is normal slang here, for everyone
Another one - Amidships, the space between the bow and stern. Also the root of the navy rank of Midshipmen who were considered somewhere between the crew (who live before the mast), and officers who live aft.
Athwartships is a fun one too!
Midships, is also a helm command, meaning to bring the ship's wheel to its natural position.
Congratulations on a fantastic video!, Such fun and interesting g!
Corsair (corsaire in french) is derived from "course" ou "guerre de course", a specific kind of warfare conducted by privateers who had a "lettre de course", an official document allowing them, in times of war, to convert their merchant ship into privateers one in order to disrupt the ennemy's maritime trade routes.
The legend of Jason and the Argonauts has a connection to Poop deck. In ancient times Argo Navis was a huge constellation in the southern sky named after Jason’s ship. During the Age of Enlightenment astronomers broke up this sprawling area and today there are three official constellations in that part of the sky. Carina the Keel, Vela the Sails and Puppis the Stern.
For a fuller explanation of lubber, google lubber line. It refers to a line drawn on a compass to show the direction of travel, or course
As a child i though a land-lubber, was 'land lover' and 'Cut of your jib' was 'cut of your jip' (joke or humour) and later 'jut og your jig' as a reference to a jig that holds timber as you cut it. In Australia 'savvy' can refer to a skill, or cunning "She is savvy with a sewing machine" or "She is savvy in these situations"
"Puppis," I love it. Poopdeck is the place where sailors "did their business" through a hole in a board (or deck).
I read Treasure Island as an adult and was amazed at how many of the pirate tropes came from that book. The parrot and everything.
A well deserved classic! I read it many times back in my schooldays.
I am so glad you took up this topic that we discussed a while back!
Best nautical movie in my library, "Yellowbeard"!
Love the joke,
Why are pirates pirates?
'Cause they aaaarrrgghhh!
😅
A classic
7:50 - fun fact, the butt is an actual unit of measurement, usually meant for fermented liquids (wine, beer, etc). One butt of volume is equal to two hogsheads, or half a tun. So... if you use water, that's about 8 pounds per US gallon. And since the unit butt is about 126 gallons (108 Imperial gallons), then a tun weighs around 2100 lbs, or just about halfway between one short ton and one long ton.
As in a butt of malmsey to drown the Duke of Clarence in.
The a- prefix in works like aback, along, askance, aggrieve, abaft, adrift, and ashore can mean "to, "toward," or "on."
A "pig in a poke" is a thing that is bought without first being inspected, and thus of unknown authenticity or quality.
A "poke" is a sack, so the image is of a concealed item being sold.
Starting in the 19th century, this idiom was explained as a confidence trick where a farmer would substitute a cat for a suckling pig when bringing it to market. When the buyer discovered the deception, he was said to "let the cat out of the bag", that is, to learn of something unfortunate prematurely, hence the expression "letting the cat out of the bag", meaning to reveal that which is secret.
The bow of the boat: If you think about it, the bows of ancient boats were formed by curved pieces of timber attached to and curving upwards from, the keel. That curve, formed in larger boats by steaming the timber to shape - or in a small boat by using a piece of timber selected from the tree that is already of the right curvature, is curved like a bow - an archery bow - hence the name - the bow.
The Union Jack - the Union Flag flown from the Jackstaff. The Jackstaff is at the front of the ship - originally sticking upwards from the bowsprit, now at the very end of the front of the ship - right up at the pointy end! In the 18th and 19th centuries the main flag was at the back, a tall flagstaff just immediately forrard of the taffrail and carrying a very large flag - those are your Colours. So long as your colours are still flying you are still in the fight - you haul down your colours to indicate to the enemy that you are surrendering.
Avast! : In modern archery in England if someone suddenly and for no apparent reason shouts "FAST" - you instantly stop shooting even if you are at full draw and just on the point of loosing the arrow - it comes from the word Avast and means *Stop!!* - in an emergency context. Nearly 50 years ago I was at a competition on a field shared with a football pitch - there were safety barriers but a footballer crossed those without looking and ran across directly in front of the archers about 50 yards downrange - one archer loosed his arrow during the instant in which the shout "Fast!" was given - the arrow went through the footballers shirt behind his shoulder without actually nicking the skin - he never understood just how lucky he'd just been. If he'd been 6 inches slower it would have penetrated his heart through the left side of his ribcage. My blood ran cold - thought he was a gonner for sure as I watched him and the arrow on a converging course.
Actually - since she told you it referred to the stern of the ship and you *still* didn't realise your landlubber mistake I think you should walk the plank anyway 'cos that counts as 2 not 1.
The sheets are the ropes that come off the bottom corners of the sail by the way. The tacks come off the ends of the yardarms. You use those 2 in conjunction to angle the sail relative to the wind and shape the sail how you want it for best efficiency.
And I'm a couchlubber by the way, watching too much utube.
"touch and go" - When fishing boats returned with their catch going upriver, they needed to get to market as quickly as possible to get the best prices. When they had the tide behind them they would go purposely go aground on the sandbanks and the tide would lift them off as it came in. They would touch the sandbank and then go as the tide lifted and pushed them. It was the way to stay at the front of the race.
When 2 ships pass each other, they would keep the other to port (cross on the right side) to prevent their steering oar on starboard to get clenched between the ships if a boarding would occur.
Two swordsmen on horseback would cross each other on the left, to keep their right arm (which is the sword arm) towards the other just in case a fight would occur.
When the overuse of cars forced us to regulate byn law how to cross each other, some of us choose the sailor's way, whereas others choose the landlubbers way ...
Love this one! I listened to it in several segments.
Here's a weird technical term in naval architecture. The 'vertical' supports that run fore and aft through the double bottoms of the ship are 'floors'. So decks are horizontal and floors are vertical on a ship.
On a ship, the toilet is called a "head" because it is at the head of the ship where the ship's crew would be and there would often be a place to pee there. The "poop deck" is one of the lower main decks near the stern where they would empty the poop buckets over the side. If the "poop deck" was at the head of the ship, the poop would leave "skid marks" along the side of the ship.
A shiver is a large sliver or splinter of wood. When a cannon ball hits the outside of a wood ship it will produce a cloud of shivers coming off the inside of the ships sides (her timbers). That is usually what produced the most casualties in a sea battle.
...also there is the term "loose cannon" where is rough seas if a cannon should come loose from it's tackle, it can destroy a ship from the inside. The term is used to describe a dangerous or risky person on your ship.
"Talk Like a Pirate Day" earns an immediate subscribe here.
"Show your true colors" seems directly related to "false flag operation."
Regarding Pieces of Eight and bits, American stocks were valued in eighths of a dollar at least into the 1980s. Also, cutting disks of a precious metal traded as currency into 1/(2^3)s is trivially simple and sounds like a reasonable way to divvy up a small plunder.
There was a _Doctor Who_ episode (I think it was "The Idiot's Lantern") where Rose criticized a bloke for calling the flag a jack and for hanging one upside down. Turns out this was foreshadowing; there were already signs that his marriage was in distress and he ended up losing his wife and son in divorce. (He wasn't a bad man; his social compass was just stuck in an earlier era.) I just happened to watch this episode a few weeks before certain things happened in America that brought "flag flown upside down" to above-the-fold headlines.
Love these videos! About the bitter end, I was taught that the end of a line attached to something else was the standing end, and the "free" end was the bitter end. Tying a knot just up from the end was tying on the bight. This is where I think the bitter end comes from - a form if bight.
"Shiver" is still use here in Norfolk, England regarding a splinter. Norfolk also being a county with a close link to the sea. (Nelson's County!)
I suspect that's also related to the slang term for a knife; a shiv.
I think the "a" in front of a word is used to draw attention to a matter. Like "a-reise..." wake up call. Its good to notice in noisy surroundings.
Thx, for this great video!
Love it! My father was involved in shipping on the Great Lakes - knew some of these, learned some new ones - thanks!
As for "taken aback", ahold, etc: my understanding is that this is the form used before we had the modern gerund form, as in "being taken back" or "being held", which I thought was a late 19th century thing. But you two are the experts!
Rob and Jess, this was an excellent presentation. Seafaring has indeed been a major influence on world culture. Other words you might consider in a future video are: mast, oar, oarlock, galley, strake, bulwark, sheer, head, gunwales, brass monkey, beat to quarters, clew, related to your previously duscussed bitter end, sheet bend, keel, keelage, keelhaul, eight bells, and of course astern where the poop deck is, and ship's wash or wake.
There is also the word Coal scuttle, which was a small coal bin kept near a fireplace or stove, from which one replenished coals or anthracite in the fireplace.
At 9.30 you talk about why so many naval terms start with A. Saying we took that from old Germanic only pushes the question back to why did they use A's. My theory I thought of for less than 20 seconds, maybe it's a distinct sound over the waves to let you know a message/order is coming up. A way of grabbing your attention which we still use today, "A....stop that" for example
Many former Spanish colonies use pesos - 'pieces' - still.
R. L. Stevenson based Long John Silver on a real person. He was his friend, the poet W. E. Henley Very striking figure, with a great buggerly beard, a heavy Gloucestershire accent and one leg.
"Peso" means "weight". The word for "piece" is "pedazo".
@@pierreabbat6157 Thank you.
I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith :)
I think the Spanish coin came pre-scored into 8 pie shaped pieces.
@@richardh8082 Why does his wooden leg have a name?