Seafaring Words and Phrases That Sail Through Our Language
In the previous edition of this column, I shared a number of pirate riddles and jokes, such as “Where does a pirate go to buy his hook? The second-hand store” and “Why are pirate kids so annoying on car trips? They keep asking, ‘Aaaar we there yet?’” As a follow-up, I share today’s column and the one that will follow a flotilla of seaworthy words and phrases, a good fit for our seafaring town.
In “Sea Fever” (1902), the poet John Masefield sang:
I must go down to the seas again,
To the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
And a star to steer her by.
Relatively few of us go down to the seas anymore, and even fewer of us get to steer a tall ship. Having lost our intimacy with the sea and with sailing, we no longer taste the salty flavor of the metaphors that ebb and flow through our language.
Consider our use of the word ship. We continue to ship goods, even when that shipping is done by truck, train, or plane. We compliment someone on “running a tight ship,” even when that “ship” is an office or a classroom. And many things besides ships can be shipshape or sinking ships.
The lapping of the sea at our language is not a difficult concept to fathom. When we try to fathom an idea, we are making poetic use of an old word that originally meant “the span between two outstretched arms.” Then the word came to mean “a unit of six feet used for measuring the depth of water.” By poetic extension the verb to fathom now means “to get to the bottom of” something, and that something doesn’t have to be the ocean.
To help you learn the ropes and get your bearings with seafaring metaphors, take a turn at the helm. The coast is clear for you to sound out the lay of the land by taking a different tack and playing a landmark game. Don’t go overboard by barging ahead, come hell or high water. If you feel all washed up, on the rocks, in over your head, and sinking fast in a wave of confusion, try to stay on an even keel. As your friendly anchorman, I won’t rock the boat by lowering the boom on you.
Now that you get my drift, consider how the following idioms of sailing and the sea sprinkle salt on our tongues: shape up or ship out, to take the wind out of his sails, the tide turns, a sea of faces, down the hatch, hit the deck, to steer clear of, don’t rock the boat, to harbor a grudge, and to give a wide berth to.
A Story Behind the Name Mark Twain
As a barefoot boy sitting on the banks of the Mississippi River, Samuel Clemens watched stern-wheeler boats churning the muddy waters, and he heard the leadsmen sounding the depth of the river by calling out to the captains, “By the deep six . . . by the mark five . . . by the deep four . . . by the mark three.” When the river bottom was only two fathoms, or twelve feet down, he would hear the lusty cry “by the mark twain.” After he left the Mississippi, and after various careers as a riverboat pilot, prospector, and printer, Sam Clemens, now a journalist, contributed an article to the Nevada Territorial Enterprise on Feb. 3, 1863, and signed it with a new name — Mark Twain.
A Toast to Friendship
To dock this nautical disquisition, I share with you one of my favorite Irish toasts:
There are good ships,
And there are wood ships,
The ships that sail the sea,
But the best ships are friendships.
May they always be.
On Saturday, Oct. 10, 1-4 p.m., I’ll be at my book table at a Howl-O-Ween Pet Adoption Fair on the patio of Rancho Bernardo Oasis, 17170 Bernardo Center Drive. The event is sponsored by Frosty Faces, dedicated to rescuing senior animals otherwise facing euthanasia in the shelter system. Admission is free. A dog’s life may mean little in the grand scheme of the universe, but it sure means a lot to the dog.
Please send your questions and comments about language to [email protected] website: www.verbivore.com
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