The rich and colorful language of the sea has influenced our conversations ashore for millennia. We all talk like a sailor on a regular basis, without any thought as to the origins of some of the expressions we use.
Published: February, 2009
It is quite amazing how many of our common idioms come from the sea. Here are some examples of what I mean.
Vessels of all types, even extremely large ones, are constructed on land and at some point need to be moved to their watery homes. Traditionally, this has been accomplished by sliding the ship down a sloped ramp into the water. To make sure that all went well during the launch and to insure that the vessel does not stop part way down, this ramp needed to be lubricated; hence the phrase greasing the skids.
Until the early nineteenth century, European sailing vessels were not able to sail toward the wind. It was possible to sail across the wind, at about 90 degrees from its source—known as ‘the eye of the wind’—but not any closer than that. If something (or someone!) fell off an old time sailing ship, it was not possible to return to them. Once the ship sailed past them, they were lost. They had gone by the boards and were irretrievable.
Much progress has been made in the last few hundred years, and now it is possible to sail within about 40 degrees of the eye of the wind. When a sailboat is sailing up wind, it has to zigzag back and forth, swinging the bow through the wind, first with the wind coming over one side of the boat, then the other. This is similar to the idea of switchbacking up a steep hill. This is known as tacking, and each individual zig and zag is called a tack. Often, because of the angle of the wind, one of the tacks would allow the vessel to sail more directly toward its objective. While sailing on the other tack, the vessel is said to be on the wrong tack.
Shouting orders from the deck of a sailing ship to crew members more than 100 feet up in the rigging was difficult in the best situations. The noise of the wind and flapping sails made it impossible in many. Mates would use a whistle (called a boatswains pipe) to transmit their instructions aloft, because its high pitched sound could be heard above the wind. Different tones, patterns, and cadences evolved for different instructions. In time, it became the custom to accompany all shipboard orders with a distinctive whistle. This included the last order of the day, when all unnecessary noise and work was to cease, as the night watch was set and the rest of the crew turned in. From this came the expression we all use ashore when seeking quiet, pipe down.
Before the days of radio, vessels communicated with each other using signal flags. When Admiral Nelson’s superiors signaled him to withdraw during the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, he deliberately put his telescope to his blind eye so as not to see the order. He went on to victory that day, and the western world received a new expression, to turn a blind eye.
Ray Wichmann,
