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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 Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
The last article covered Sailor Talk that don't seem to fit any particular category. In this article I cover some more random terms.
One reader asked for the origin of Poop Deck, a term I referenced in an earlier article without discussing its origin. The Romans, Greeks and other Mediterranean seafarers of ancient times had a custom of mounting a sacred idol in the stern. The Latin word for small doll or idol was puppis. From that, the back part of the ship was called the puppim. Puppim became poupe by the time the word made it into Italian, French, and Middle English. As poupe it was still the back part of the ship. Thus the poupe deck became the deck that covered the back part of the ship.
Ever wondered why a cup of coffee is sometimes called a "cup of Joe"? This is a relatively recent development. It started in 1913 when Josephus Daniels became Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. Joe Daniels instituted a number of needed reforms in the Navy, including inaugurating the practice of making 100 Sailors from the Fleet eligible for entrance into the Naval Academy, the introduction of women into the service, and the abolishment of the officers' wine mess. From his time forward, the strongest drink aboard Navy ships could only be coffee. Thus a cup of coffee became known as "a cup of Joe".
By the way, the shipboard gathering place for officers, the wardroom, started out as the wardrobe room. It was a secure place where the officers could keep their spare uniforms. Usually located in a section of the ship where the room could be kept locked, it typically became the room where the gold, silver, jewels, coinage and other valuables from captured ships would be stored. Officers had to eat, just like the common sailors. The captain had his table and sometimes the officers would be invited to join him, but not all officers and not all meals. Traditionally, officers never entered the forecastle where the crew slept and ate. So they had to find some other place to take their meals. The wardrobe room, when a ship had one, was a perfect spot. Eventually the wardrobe room became the wardroom, and lost all its uses except that of the gathering place for the ship's officers.
Have you ever wondered why shipboard time is kept in terms of bells? And why eight instead of twelve? The practice of using bells stems from the days of the sailing ships. Before practical timepieces suitable for shipboard use were invented in the late eighteenth century, most people kept track of the passing of time using what we know today as the hourglass. Thus most ships relied on an hourglass to keep time, and the ship's bell to report the time to the captain, officers and crew. The ship's timekeeper, usually the ship's boy when one was aboard, would use a half-hourglass. Each time the sand ran out, he would turn the glass over and ring an appropriate number of bells. Each watch is four hours in length. One bell is struck after the first half hour, a group of two on the first hour, a group of two plus a third on the half hour following the first hour, two groups of two bells for the second hour and so forth until a total of eight bells is rung on the fourth hour to complete the watch. Completing a watch with no incidents to report was accompanied with the call of "Eight bells and all is well."
There was a slight variance in this procedure just before noon. At seven bells in the forenoon watch, every day at sea, the captain and selected officers would begin preparations to make their noon observations of the sun in order to calculate the ship's latitude. When the sun was observed to be at zenith, the moment of local noon, one of the observers would call out "There he goes!" (the sun was considered to have the quality of male gender). The timekeeper would use that call as the signal to turn the half-hour glass and ring eight bells, resetting shipboard time for that day. Thus those voyagers never had to worry about time zones and resetting clocks.
Here's a fun tradition related to ship's bells. At midnight at the end of the old year sixteen bells are struck. To honor the old year, the oldest person on the vessel, whether enlisted, admiral or whatever, strikes the first eight bells. And to honor the New Year, the second eight bells are struck by the youngest person aboard.
What's the origin of "log book"? The first log books were comprised of shingles cut directly from logs. These wooden shingles were constructed into a book by drilling holes in one edge, then bound together by weaving leather through the holes.
Here's an interesting term. Hunky-dory, meaning everything is okay, was coined from a street named Honki-Dori in Yokohama, Japan. When sailors got shore leave in Yokohama, they would inevitably head for Honki-Dori street where the shopkeepers catered to the pleasures of sailors. Thus hunky-dory became synonymous for anything that is enjoyable or satisfactory.
A "long" shot is a modern gambling term with an old nautical origin. Ships' guns were very inaccurate except at close quarters. If they hit anything at all at any distance, much less the intended target, it could only be due to extreme good luck. Thus we have the inference of "luck" in the gambling term.
Why are Americans abroad called Yankees? The origin of this is not very clear. One belief is that early American sea captains were also known for their ability to drive a hard bargain. The Dutch, also regarded as extremely frugal, jokingly referred to the hard to please Americans as Yankers or wranglers. Eventually Yanker became corrupted to Yankee. And in the process it got expanded to include all New England shopkeepers and then New Englanders in general. As most ship captains were from New England, they began referring to themselves as Yankees. From that usage, the American nickname of Yankee spread worldwide.
That's it for this time. In the next article I'll cover "at loggerheads", "mind your P's and Q's", and more.
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