Episode 16: Ship Talk
EPISODE 16 - SHIP TALK
The way a person speaks says a lot about their background. Even setting the topic of conversation aside the accents, colloquialisms, and vocabulary of an individual are all indicators of geographic origins, regional and parental influences, and education. The way someone phrases their sentences, certain jargon they might use, and the way they place certain inflections on words and syntax can also provide huge clues to the profession of the speaker. Salesmen tend to posses the earnest capability of carrying a conversation with a wall, using everyday language, but in a way that makes you feel comfortable and like lifelong friends. Nurses love to throw around acronyms and other hospital lingo that I absolutely always need a clarifier on. If you’re one of those lucky few people who hang around my company, you’ll very rarely hear use the word say “bathroom” - ninety nine percent of the time, I’ll say something along the lines of “I’ve got to hit the head”.
SHOW NOTES:
1:20 The Head
And most of you listening here probably know that a head is the ships toilet. But on old sailing ships there were no toilets.There were no holding tanks, and no below deck facilities to do your business.
Now, you would probably think that if this was the case you would want to go to the aft of the ship. You might think that way, things would be carried away with the sea following behind you. In reality, though, the opposite was true. These big square rigged ships all sailed downwind, one direction only - and that was the direction the wind was blowing. So in an effort to not piss into the wind, the crew instead went to the bow of the ship to make use of the ‘seats of ease’ that were placed there.
The action of the waves below the bow would wash away the waste. Something that also was up at the bow?
The ship’s figurehead. A massive work of art, usually of a bare breasted woman or a mythological creature. Sailors would say they needed to go to the figurehead, or head for short.
2:20 Oral Heritage
Nautical language is very much an oral tradition. Most sailors were illiterate, and the technical jargon and sailor speak was learnt from experience, not from books. The first nautical dictionaries, for example Captain John Smith’s Sea Grammar, written in1627 and Captain Manwayring’s Sea-Man’s Dictionary written in 1644, did appear eventually in the seventeenth century. But these books were intended more for administrators rather than for seamen. From the language of mariners grew a bonding of men who sought solidarity in the face of the hardships at sea and it was all done through stories.
3:30 The Tradition of Storytelling
And a sailor’s favorite tradition is storytelling. Shanties and sailor’s yarns, tales of their sea strife, reinforced and preserved the language and the bonding. The stories told by weathered seamen were an important part of the induction of the new crew. These yarns gave the greenies a chance to learn the language and customs of the sea in an informal story-based tradition. This method was often more effective than being barked at by officers.
4:15 Landlubbers’ Talk vs Sailors’ Lingo
For example, on a ship a sheet is a rope attached to a sail. A painter is a thin rope attached to the bow of a boat. A ceiling is what nautical folk call the internal planking on a ship and a floor is an upright structural element in the bottom of a ship. Oh, and a personal tip here, if someone ever asks you to go and get the bulkhead remover…ask them if it’s located right next to the prop wash. Bulkhead remover doesn’t exist, and this little joke the senior crew play on the greenies as a sort of hazing tradition. And by the by, prop wash doesn’t exist either.
5:00 Technical Sailing Craft Vocabulary to Pleasure
At the root of this nautical vocabulary is the technical language of commercial and military sailing ships, and though much of it is archaic in character it remains alive and present both in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy. Cruisers and yachties use the language as well. The popularity of pleasure sailing and the romance of the sea also help to keep the oral tradition alive.
5:30 The Internationality of the Maritime Trade
Ships were one of the first pieces of industrial machinery developed by humankind. Through the years large numbers of people have operated ships, and through time has created a massive throughout within the world. The fact of the matter is, a very precise terminology came into place and is required for all the different elements of technical gear on ships. Many of these words have derived from Old Norse, Old English, Norman and Mediterranean languages. Because of the international nature of maritime trade and the need for people to communicate across these language barriers, it is not always possible to work out exactly how some nautical words have evolved.
6:30 Not a Clew - Clue Vs. Clue and where it Originates
The part of the sail where it attaches to the sheet, usually in a corner is called the clew. And if you haven’t a clue why, it’s not spelled how you would think it is, its spelled C-L-E-W. The word most likely originates from an early Indo-European gleu, which is the root word for clay. In old English this then became then cliewen, meaning a ball of yarn, and the clew of a ship is often where a long line known as a sheet is unfurled and wound out…so it all adds up. And if you’re curious, which you probably are - a sail’s clew has the same latin origin for the more well known version of the word clue - meaning a hint. In translations of Greek mythology, Theseus used a ball of yarn known as a clew to get through the labyrinth. Evolving to mean a clue was anything that could help solve a puzzle.
8:00 The Meanings of Running Gear, Foot, Yard, and Fiddle are different on sea than land
But this distinct form of nautical language has been termed ‘Ship English’. The Victorian nautical novelist William Clark Russell, who served at sea himself, called sailor’s talk ‘a dialect in which English words are used, but their signification is utterly remote from the meaning they have in shore.” Terms such as running gear, foot, yard, port, fiddles, and sheets all mean very different things at sea than on land.
8:10 How Halyards Came About
A halyard is a rope used to hoist a sail. The word halyard comes from Anglo-Norman, via the Norse of the Vikings. The first part, Hal, from the word hale, meaning haul. The second part yard, refers to the yard arms of a ship. These are the massive cross beams up in the rig running parallel to the sea that the sails hang from. So the line that raises, or hauls, a sail to the yards, becomes the haul-yard, and then through years of use, the halyard.
9:15 The Origins of Port & Starboard
Most people have heard of port and starboard. If you haven’t, Starboard is the right-hand side of a ship, and port is the left. A good way to remember this - left and port both have four letters. If you’re trying to remember their navigational colors, you can also remember that port wine is red. But where did these words come from? The word starboard derived from the steering board on a Viking ship that was placed on the right-hand side that the helmsman controlled Through language and poor dictation, the steer-board side became the starboard side. The left-hand side of a ship was referred to as the larboard side. But I just want you to just think for a moment here. Imagine you’re in the heat of battle, swords clashing, guns firing, men yelling, and your commander gives you orders to prepare the starboard side for firing.
Or wait… did he actually say larboard?
The words starboard and larboard were too similar sounding, so eventually the larboard side became port. This is because the left side of the ship was almost always the side the ship that they came into dock, or into port on.
