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You are welcome to apply any part of this article to your own personal use. Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
In my last column, I asked you a few of the same questions that I had about Sailor Talk. Here are the answers I found to some of those questions, and more.
Why are navies are lead by admirals instead of generals? This comes to us from the Arabic amir, a prince or commander. By the 12th century, the Moslem fleets were the most powerful in the Mediterranean. So powerful was this influence that all of the modern navigational stars still carry their 12th century Arabian names.
Moslem fleet leaders had the title amir-al-bahr, commander of the sea. The title most certainly reached Western Europe via the Crusades, being shortened slightly to amiral in French, and to admiral in English.
Curiously, while the heads of armies and navies have different titles, the heads of their respective companies have the same title. The army captain is the head of an army company, while the navy captain is the head of a ship's company. Captain has been both a naval and army title since the 11th century. It comes to us via Old French chevetagne, chieftain from the Latin root caput, head or leading officer.
Technically, captain is an armed forces rank only. The licensed head of any other vessel is a master. Given the source of the title, we can easily understand why the courtesy title of captain has been traditionally used to address the head officer of any naval or coast guard vessel, regardless of the officer's actual rank. For the very same reason, those holding their Masters License for operating commercial or pleasure vessels are also traditionally addressed as captain.
However, tradition says that those operating boats without their ticket should not be addressed as captain. Instead, they should be addressed as skipper. This was generally the case until relatively recently in the U.S. East Coast when radio communication replaced horn signals to request a bridge opening on the Intracoastal Waterway.
When the bridge operators talked to commercial vessels, they would know that the master was entitled to be addressed as captain. Unfortunately when talking to pleasure craft, they have no way of knowing whether they were addressing a licensed master, an unlicensed master, a crew or a guest. It was easier for the operators to address everyone as captain.
Things are different in Alaska, British Colombia, Washington, Oregon and California. There skipper is used almost exclusively as the courtesy title over the radio. Why the difference? It is true that skipper is quite acceptable when informally addressing a licensed master at any time, and that Westerners tend to be much more informal than Easterners. However, I think that the different practice is primarily due to so few opening bridges in those waters.
Skipper, by the way, comes to us from Old Dutch schipper, the master of a small trading vessel.
While we're on the subject of courtesy titles, many of the ship's company had very specific courtesy titles, or nicknames. These nicknames were generally for the ship's idlers. An idler was never really idle. Rather, he was called an idler by the sailors because he stood no watches and could sleep through the night. Often the sailors never knew the real names of the idlers because of the use of these nicknames. If the ship were large enough for more than one idler doing a specific job, all doing that job would share the same nickname. In most cases it's easy to see how the nickname came into use. In others, we have to dig a little.
One of the idlers was the bosun. He was known as Boats. Bosun is a phonetic spelling of bo's'n, the contraction of boatswain. This is one of the very few Sailor Talk we have that originated in English. A swain was a young man, apprentice or assistant. In nautical terms dating back to the 10th century, the boat's swain was the young man who would do all those tasks that would assist in the efficient operation of the boat. Such tasks included securing the anchor after it has been weighed, dishing out punishment with the cat-o-nine-tails, tying the two hangman's knots, coiling lines and insuring that sufficient stores were aboard for the voyage.
Wait a minute. Backup for a second. Two hangman's knots? Absolutely. We all know about the hangman's noose. Few know that a second knot was used for executions at sea. The knot was tied about six feet above the noose, leaving a loose bight of about six feet in length. The noose would be placed about the victim's neck, run up to a block on the yardarm and back down to the deck. Slack would be taken out of the rope. At the appointed time, the crew would haul on the bitter end of the rope, running down the deck as fast as they could. When this second knot reached the block at the yardarm, it would automatically capsize and free the loose bight. With six feet of slack suddenly in the rope, the victim would drop. Upon reaching the end of that six feet, his neck would be instantly broken by the sudden jerk of the noose on his neck.
Okay, back to the idlers.
The sailmaker was known as Sails. The ship's carpenter was known as Chips. The ship's blacksmith (and as steam power was added in the mid 19th century, the ship's engineer) was known as Blackie for the coal soot generally covering his face.
Sails often had crew to assist him in his work. Carol Hasse, a sail maker in Port Townsend, Washington, told me the favorite phrase of the sailmaker. It was 'a stitch in time saves nine'. The meaning was clear to the assistants. If they sewed fewer than the required nine stitches per inch, Sails would make them take out all stitches for that inch and again go for the required nine. On some ships it had an additional meaning. For every inch without the required number of stitches, Boats would lay nine stitches on the poor sailor's back with the cat-o-nine-tails.
The ship's cooper (maker of casks) was known as Coop. He would break down every cask for storage when its contents were consumed, and would later reassemble it for filling when the opportunity arose. Because he could work wood (making the barrel staves) and metal (making the barrel hoops), Coop would assist Chips and Blackie on larger vessels and do all their tasks on vessels too small for a cooper, a carpenter and a smith.
The ship's cook was called The Doctor, or simply Doc. The Doctor was easy to find on board ship. He was noticeably heavier than the rest of the crew. Now you know why Snow White instantly knew the name of the fat dwarf, and why a modern day cook will 'doctor up' the food. Why was the cook called The Doctor? That's one I've been unable to find. If you have that answer, please pass it on to me.
While we're on the subject of The Doctor, have you ever boned a chicken? Would you believe that 'to bone...' actually started out as Sailor Talk? 'To bone' means to scrounge everything except the 'bare bones'. A bosun named Bone served on the flagship of Admiral Cornwallis from 1793 until about 1801. He was particularly adept at 'acquiring' ship's stores from other vessels to make good his deficits, building up quite a surplus towards the end of his tour. As the bosun was departing the ship for the last time, Admiral Cornwallis was said to remark, "I trust, Mr. Bone, that you will leave me my bower anchors."
Here's another one for you. The Doctor had a perquisite. He could keep any fat that he could skim off the top of the kettles when cooking the salt beef. He sold the skimmed fat to the ship's purser. Originally that fat was used to make candles. Later it was also used to make the grease that was used to protect the spars from rain and spray. The skimmed fat was called slush. Doc's perquisite was known as his slush fund.
Our last idler was Doc's assistant. He was known as Soups. Along with helping with the preparations and the cleanup, Soups had the very specific job of apportioning the food, frequently some sort of soupy concoction, to the crew.
Darn. This is by far the longest article in this series, and I've only answered one question. It looks like I'll have to repeat the unanswered questions from last time and, just for fun, ask you a few more of the questions I've had about Sailor Talk. Why is a storm sail called a trysail? Why is one end of a rope called the bitter end? Why do ships have gender? Why is shipboard gossip known as scuttlebutt? Why is a drinking establishment ashore called a saloon? Why do we have yachts instead of boats? Hmmm... I wonder if I can answer more than one of these in the next column.
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