Nautical phrases in everyday use.

[david niven]

How many phrases in everyday use can we think of that have a nautical origin [with the meaning if they're obscure please]?

[sft42]

Freeze the balls of a brass monkey, To the bitter end, walk the plank, three sheets to the wind, in the doldrums, Posh must be loads of others but thats all off the top of my head for now!

[sddsddean]

There are loads. Off the top of my head: By and large, Going Dutch, A copper bottomed investment, heads (as in name for a toilet), nipper (name of child), scuttlebutt, keelhauled, Taken aback, On a lee shore, Dead in the water, Show a leg. Thats all I can think of straight away.

[FredPuli]

To be 'on your beam ends', 'shipshape and Bristol fashion' are others. Some are now pretty obscure in their origin. The bitter end, for example, being from the last turn (bitter) of the anchor chain or rope around the bitt (the post around which it was wound).'Show a leg', is supposedly from the cry in the morning to evict any visiting women who might still be aboard from the night before ; when a female leg appeared from the hammock it had to go but the male ones could stay !

[Hippy]

"Chock-a-block" from the blocks in the ropes to hoist sails etc. They acted as levers by winding the rope over a series of loops. Eventually, when the rope was shortened by pulling, the blocks met and no more pulling was possible.

"Swinging the lead" from the line tossed over the stern with knots in. There was a small lead weight at the end and by timing the knots passing out the speed of the ship could be calculated in "knots". Sailors doing this duty were not really working, not expending lots of effort, so "swinging the lead" was a sort of cheat to avoid work.

"Warming the bell". The watches aboard ship was signalled by bell rings. The watches were timed by a giant egg timer with sand trickling from an upper chamber to a lower in a glass bulb, flowing through a tiny hole in the middle. Sailors thought that by rubbing the point where the sand flowed with the hands warmed the glass and made the sand flow faster and so speed their watch. It is doubtful if it actually worked, but it was a widespread belief amongst sailors. "Warming the Bell" is to artificially give yourself some sort of advantage by manipulating machines or rules.

I think, as England was a major world maritime power, many of our idioms and sayings can be traced to sailing.

[boognish76]

I think the 'posh' and 'brass monkey' nautical origins are just etymological urban myths aren't they? 'Broadsided' and 'learn the ropes' springs to mind.

[andy hughes]

I understand the 'balls off a brass monkey' to originate from the sailing ships when cannon balls were stacked in pyramids on deck, held in place by a brass ring or 'monkey'. If the weather was cold enough, the brass ring contratced, and the balls rolled off, hence the phrase. 'Show a leg' comes from the days when sailors would be visited on ship by wives, girlfriends, or 'ladies of the port'. When it came time to sail, a crew member would stand by a hammock and ask the crewman to 'show a leg' and if it was a smooth leg, his guest had not yet left ship, and would be invited to do so promptly.

[RCP]

Another one is "toeing the line" as the crew had to stand in line for inspection. A lot of these expressions can be found in the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian.

[boognish76]

I'm aware of the 'balls off a brass monkey' nautical origin theory - I just don't believe it. For a phrase's origin to be commonly accepted I think there has to be some supporting evidence and, for this theory, there is none. Look at the fuss over 'nitty-gritty' - just because someone made up an origin and posted it on the internet! Besides which, isn't the phrase 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey' faily self-evident anyway?

[ralph1953]

Between the devil and the deep blue sea...? The bottom edge of the sail was called the devil - if you got caught out holding on to it when the ship went about... guess where you were.....

[JefRow]

I heard on Radio Four that 'the nitty gritty' was the grit in the holds of slave ships, in particular in the very bottom. 'Cat got your tounge' refers to the code of silence that seaman were advised to adhere to whilst in port. Any sailor heard discussing the nature of his vessels cargo over a jug of warm ale would be sure to recieve licks from the Cat'O nine tails. The slang 'Chunder', as in throwing up, originates from the tightly packed deportation ships that took criminals from Britain to Australia. These fellows would not have developed sea legs and were often sea sick. To warn other passengers who might be hanging over the side on the deck below of your impending decending vomit, it was proper to shout 'watch under!'. A bit of a mouthful under such circumstances, this phrase would become '..'chunder......!!'

[mje1066]

A great many of the given answers are, unfortunately, folk etymologies. Leads are used to sound the bottom, not to measure speed. That's done with a log carrying out a knotted cord- the source of both "ships's log and" "knots" as a measure of speed. The devil is not the bottom or any other part of a sail. Rather, it's the uppermost garboard strake. To be between the devil and the deep blue sea is to be hanging on precariously over the side. Another phrase is "the devil to pay and no tar hot". To pay a seam is to pour hot tar over the caulking to seal it. The devil is a critical seam, and if it's leaking and there's no tar, you have a problem. The brass monkey story has been thoroughly debunked. The "cat got your tongue" story is similarly false, although there is the uncommon "not enough room to swing a cat" whcih does refer to the cat o'nine tails. "Nitty gritty" is yet another example of rhyming slang, though not Cockney in this case; it's Black American slang and refers to the sexual act, and has nothing to do with slaving ships.