Salty Dog Talk (9 page)

Salt was not considered quite so precious by northern European sailors but in the early days of sail it was still a very valuable commodity where it was used principally to preserve meat, for eating (salt tablets are still issued on most ships in the tropics) and even as a crude antiseptic. It is from this that we get the expression
rub salt in the wounds
.

Before the days of canned foodstuffs and refrigeration, the ship’s meat was supplied soaked in brine and stored in casks or barrels. The fat, which became hard, stuck to the edge of the barrel but in a hungry ship this was never allowed to waste and the cook would have to scrape the barrel, hence to use the very last, and sometimes the inferior.

From the sailors’ art of scrimshaw or the making of ornamental objects from the remains of marine birds and mammals. Whale bones were the most common material. It was a popular hobby and since it involved little noise scrimshanking was frequently indulged by men on duty which was how the term came to imply malingering. Some say the word comes from the founder expert Admiral Scrimshaw, others claim there was no such person.

From the routine job of holystoning or scrubbing the decks. If an obstruction were placed on the deck the men would be told to scrub round it, hence ignoring or dismissing a problem. The ‘Holystone’ was a large block of sandstone which was used to scour the wooden decks. It earned its name because men kneeling down to work the stone looked as if they were praying to it.

From
sculling
, the action of propelling a boat with one oar over the stern. Many of the doubtful traders and opportunists which plagued every ship at anchor would scull their boats, this could be a reference to them. Slang for an article left lying about, or a person idly employed.

Scuppers are the waterways or guttters at the edge of the deck which drain off the water. If a man were knocked over by a wave sweeping across the deck he would likely end up here, he was then said to be
scuppered
.

The act of deliberately sinking a ship of which the most dramatic example was the scuttling of the German High Seas fleet, including over fifteen battleships, after it had been interned at Scapa Flow after World War I. Rather than face the ignominy of handing them over to the British, the Germans preferred to sink their ships. Scuttle is an Anglo-Saxon word for a small hole.

Originally a wooden cask set in a convenient part of the ship from which the men could draw their ration of water. The cask was refilled daily but to ensure that water was used sparingly it was ‘scuttled’ which meant it had a small hole made in its side so that only half a cask could be filled at a time. Men lining up at the scuttlebutt for their ration of water would naturally exchange gossip which is what the word in America has come to mean. But faithful to its original it remains peculiarly the gossip heard at the office water cooler or fountain.

Scuppered

Sailors had many sayings to express completion:
all squared up
, from the business of tidying the yards;
all clewed up
which had to do with stowing the sails; and this the final and most absolute
all sewn up
, a reference to the dead. At sea the bodies of the dead were sewn inside an old piece of sail or canvas or sometimes, their hammocks before being committed to the deep. The purpose of this was partly respectful, and partly pragmatic because it stopped the cannon balls or ballast weights slipping out. Traditionally, when sewing up, the last stitch was passed through the nose. This was done to release the soul and make sure the corpse was really dead.

Work songs sung aboard ship which brightened up the drudgery of hand hauling and also ensured the men all
pulled
their weight together. There were different shanties for different work. Halyard shanties were brisk for the quick but comparatively easy work of hoisting sail. Capstan shanties sung when the anchor was to be hauled aboard were generally slow and sentimental. The custom goes back to the 15th century and the word shanty probably takes its name from the French
chanter
, to sing.

Look smart, improve oneself. Frequently used as a verb in connection with the course a vessel is to make. The navigator will draw or
shape
a course around a headland, a danger or an obstruction. A ship out of position will
shape up
a course to reach her destination.

The sheet anchor is a name which has survived since Elizabethan times. It is a large anchor carried as a spare lest either of the main anchors should be lost or fail to hold the ship in heavy weather, Quite why the term means quintessential reliability is difficult to understand. Most sheet anchors are so covered in paint they are impossible to drag off the bulkhead.

If the seas were too big, or the wind too strong for a square-rigged ship to be brought from one tack to the other it was the standard practice to
wear
ship, which means to put her stern through the wind rather than her bow (in yachting this is known as gybing.) Sometimes however the seas are too big to prevent this, hence the expression
she won’t wear it
.

For centuries Bristol was the major port on the English west coast and shipping here was the best regulated and most organised in the country, or so it was said by Bristolians. Hence its use to mean in tip top order, everything neat and tidy.

A fishing boat
shoots
its nets and lines. There is a probable link with the fact that longlines, used for catching cod, were several miles long and it took hours to bait the many hundreds of hooks. Quiet, undemanding and repetitive work would be conducive to story telling.

Make a move, get started. It dates back to Napoleon times or before, when men were pressed into service and taken forcibly from the streets and their homes. Shore leave was impossible lest the men should desert, so as recompense, women were sometimes allowed to visit and it is recorded that at Spithead, the naval anchorage off Portsmouth, as many as 500 women might be entertained aboard one ship. Naturally in the mornings when work was begun there existed some confusion and the petty officers’ way of sorting this out was to shout ‘Show a leg!’ Soft and curvy ones could stay where they were, hairy ones were kicked out of bed!

Another shout that accompanied reveille was
Rise and Shine
which again people still use today. There are more, indeed there is an entire verse but it is much too rude to publish here.

A woman with fascinating but deadly charm. A word from Greek mythology. Sirens charmed passing sailors with their singing and with such effect that the men were rooted to the spot and eventually perished from hunger. The lure of the sirens was finally ended when Odysseus, warned of their danger, plugged up the ears of his crew. The women were so stricken by this reversal that they threw themselves into the sea. Cape Pelorus in Sicily, where it was reputed to have taken place, was later renamed Sirenis.

Show a leg

Long before the word came to mean a high building it was the name given to the highest sail in the ship. Triangular shaped, made of very light cloth, it was used only in moderate weather. Sometimes a square sail was set in the same place and this was called a
moonraker
. Both skyscraper and moonraker were carried above the
skysails
. Occasionally they would run up an even higher one known as,
stargazer
. After that they ran out of names.

One of several sayings used unkindly to urge a quick departure. This one is a reference to the sailor’s hammock and the suggestion that he slings it on another hook elsewhere. From boatwork comes
shove off
which literally means to push the boat away from the ship’s side or quay and is still the recognised term. Or a person may be told to
beat it
which is to beat out of port in the first auspicious wind, or from the practice of ‘beating to quarters’ when ships’ crews ran to battle stations to the beat of a drum.

Siren

Comes from the Middle English
sloppe
a loose-fitting garment. In the early days of the Royal Navy it was noticed that many of the men were in rags which not only made a poor impression but also impaired health and efficiency. In 1663, an order was passed requiring all ships to carry a supply of clothing which could be sold to the crew; a regulation which has survived to the present day. The name for the locker in which the clothes were kept was the
slop chest
, and presumably because it contained mostly
sloppes
which in those early times were the seaman’s standard dress (before the introduction of the
petticoat
). The word collected its slang meaning of untidiness or a job carelessly done from the shape of the garment and the state that it must have been in after months squashed in a trunk.

Slush was the unpromising name for fat scraped off the top of the barrels of meat. It was jealously guarded. The crew found it perfect for greasing masts to make sail hoisting easier and for preserving leather fittings. The cook, unhappy about this, would secrete it in his ‘slush fund’. It was a perquisite so far as he was concerned. He sold it ashore, mostly to candle makers and people in the fish and chip trade.

To
snub
a ship is to cut short her progress, either by dropping the anchor onto the bottom to act as a brake, or by holding onto any ropes which might connect her to the shore. Eventually the word was applied to members of a crew, and to snub a man was to humiliate him with a curt remark, or to ignore him.

Another word with similar meaning is
jibe
. This is the sudden and dramatic movement of a sailing vessel bringing the wind across her stern and filling the sails on the other side – done carelessly it can bring the mast down. The evidence which suggests this is an authentic sea word is
jib
, the Viking word for sail.

From the perpetual threat held against slaves working in areas bordering the Northern States of America. If they misbehaved or proved lazy, they could be
sold down the river
(the Mississippi) to work in the southern sugar plantations. From this comes the notion of cheated, hoodwinked, taken for a ride.

A seaman’s farewell, from the East Indian word ‘salaam’. Common in shore-side use, but originally nautical.

Complimentary term for a sailor suggesting he was a natural born to the job, or more precisely born
on
the job. It comes from the time when women shared the gun deck accommodation with men aboard ships in port and sometimes at sea. Since the working spaces and gangways had to be kept clear, the only undisturbed place a woman could give birth to a child would be behind screens between the guns. The expression also meant being conceived alongside a gun, since a hammock wasn’t convenient for that sort of thing.