Lederer on Language: The true scuttlebutt about our nautical English language

Let’s go sailing, sailing over the bounding main.

A mainstay is a strong rope that helps stabilize a ship’s main mast, but for most of us mainstay means “the most important part of something; someone or something that providesprimary support,” as in “The Union-Tribune is a mainstay of our San Diego community.” In the same fleet as mainstay sails flagship, a ship that carries the commander’s flag and has come to mean “the best and most important of a group.”

For old salts and ancient mariners, by and large was a command that meant “to sail slightly off the wind,” in contrast to full and by, “keeping the sails full of all the wind possible.”When we say by and large today, we mean “in general; for the most part” because we do not wish to sail directly into the topic.

The expression taken aback probably conjures up in your mind an image of a person caught off guard and staggering backwards. But the origin of the phrase is nautical, too: Sailingby and large left an inexperienced helmsman in less danger of being taken aback, which meant “to catch the wind on the wrong side of the sails.”

From the Greek word for “ship,” we inherit a word that means “illness,” but which originally signified “seasickness.” That word is nauseated. Feeling nauseated on shipboard canforce one to go below deck to recover. That’s where we get the expression under the weather.

On sailing ships of yesteryear the “butt” was a popular term for the large, lidded casks that held drinking water. These butts were equipped with “scuttles,” openings through whichsailors ladled out the water. Just as today’s office workers gather about a water cooler to exchange chitchat and rumor, crewmen stood about the scuttled butts to trade scuttlebutt.

Seafarers used to describe a ship in shallow water that touches bottom from time to time as touch and go, which has been extended to designate any precarious situation. A moreprecarious situation is one in which a ship strikes bottom and is held tight, unable to proceed. Today we use the expression hard and fast to identify any rigid rule or opinion.

The doldrums are those parts of the ocean near the Equator that are noted for calm and neutral weather. They pose no difficulty for fuel-driven vessels, but for sailing ships they mean a dead standstill. When we are stuck in boredom or depression, we are in the doldrums.

Ships’ colors used to be raised and lowered a peg at a time. The higher the colors, the greater the honor. Nowadays, we diminish others’ self-esteem by taking them down a peg. In sailing parlance devil is not he of the forked tail and horned head but a nautical term for the seam between two planks in the hull of a ship, on or below the water line. Anyone who had to caulk such a “devil” was figuratively caught between a rock and a hard place, or between the devil and the deep blue sea.

For sailors, sheets refer to the lines attached to the lower corner of a sail. When all three sheets of an old sailing vessel were allowed to run free, they were said to be “in the wind,” andthe ship would lurch and stagger like a person inebriated. That’s why we call an unsteady state of drunkenness three sheets to the wind.

Seafaring folk called that part of the cable that is to the rear of the windlass bitt, and the turn of the cable around the bitts the bitter. When a ship rides out a gale, the cable is let out tojust the place that this column has reached — the bitter end.

***

I’ll be performing “A Treasury of Halloween Humor” on Oct. 15, 10 a.m., at Rancho Bernardo Oasis; on Oct. 16, 10 a.m.; at La Mesa Oasis; on Oct. 17, 10 a.m., at the San Carlos Library; on Oct. 22, 2 p.m., at the Point Loma Library; on Oct. 23, 11 a.m., at the Rancho Santa Fe Library; and on Oct. 25, 2:30 p.m., at the Mission Hills-Hillcrest Library.

On Saturday, Oct. 18, 1 to 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 eventis sponsored by Frosty Faces, dedicated to rescuing senior animals otherwise facing euthanasia in the shelter system. Admission is free.

Please send your questions and comments about language to richardhlederer@gmail.com website: www.verbivore.com