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shiver me timbers
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origin 'shiver me timbers'
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.It was a joke oath supposedly used by sailors but first employed in writing by Captain Marryat - writer of the 'Hornblower' stories - in 'Jacob Faithful ', published in the 1830s. Robert Louis Stevenson also had his famous character, Long John Silver, use the phrase later in 'Treasure Island'. The idea was obviously a reference to the timbers of a ship, built of wood in those days, being blasted apart - ie broken into 'shivers' or fragments - by enemy shot or collision with rocks perhaps. Anyone who says the phrase obviously means he's devastated, in much the same way as the splintered ship was.
Oh, dear! Any doubts you had were fully justified, Paulz. Of course Forester wrote the Hornblower stories...it was the Midshipman Easy ones that Marryat wrote. What a plonker I am! My apologies to you, too, Kathy, for the misinformation. (The rest of the answer is OK, however. In future, I'll try to get my naval heroes sorted out rather better.)