Nautical terminology - you know more than you may think

Ships and nautical lore were an integral part of our culture for hundreds of years. It should come as no surprise that portions of the terminology from off shore were adopted into common usage on shore as well. Here are some that I have gathered together from various sources that you may recognize, still in use, and still retaining at least some of their original meaning:

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• A- - A prefix attached to a noun, indicating "toward". For example, "astern", which means towards the stern or back of the ship. More familiar versions: Aloft - towards the masthead, Ahead - towards the head or front of the ship, Alee - towards the lee or downwind side of the ship.
  
• Above Board – On or above the deck, in plain view, not hiding anything.
• All 9 Yards - A full-rigged ship has three masts, each of which is equipped with three primary horizontal spars which hold the tops of the sails, called yards. The expression means basically, "everything", as when a ship was in a shipyard for refitting, and the captain described the work to be done as "all 9 yards".
• As the Crow Flies - When lost or unsure of their position in coastal waters, ships would release a caged crow. The crow would fly straight towards the nearest land thus giving the vessel some sort of a navigational fix. The tallest lookout platform on a ship came to be know as the crow's nest.
• Booby – A type of bird that had little fear and therefore was particularly easy to catch, hence booby prize.
• By and Large – By means into the wind, while large means with the wind. By and large is used to indicate all possible situations "the ship handles well both by and large".
• By the board – Gone overboard.
• Cat o' nine tails – A short nine-tailed whip kept by the bosun's mate to flog sailors. When not in use, the cat was kept in a bag, hence the term "cat out of the bag".
  
• No Room to Swing a Cat - The entire ship's company was required to witness flogging at close hand. The crew might crowd around so that the Bosun's Mate might not have enough room to swing his cat o' nine tails.
• Chock-a-block – Rigging blocks that are so tight against one another that they cannot be further tightened.
• Clean bill of health – A certificate issued by a port indicating that the ship carries no infectious diseases.
• Clean slate – At the helm, the watch keeper would record details of speed, distances, headings, etc. on a slate. If there were no problems during the watch, the slate would be wiped clean so that the new watch could start over with a clean slate.
• Cut and run – When wanting to make a quick escape, a ship might cut lashings to sails or cables for anchors, causing damage to the rigging, or losing an anchor, but shortening the time needed to make ready by bypassing the proper procedures.
• Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea – The devil seam was the garboard seam, the seam between the keel and the first course of planking on a ship's hull. When not in a dry dock, the way to get at the hull for maintenance was to anchor the ship in shallow water, and wait for the tide to go out, laying the ship on the sea bottom. The garboard seam was the last to be revealed by the outgoing tide, and the first to be covered by the incoming tide, making caulking it difficult to get done - thus the name. Imagine a sailor suspended from deck on a plank above the incoming tide, trying to finish getting the seam caulked, and you have the origin of the expression.
  
• Devil to pay (or Devil to pay, and no pitch hot) – 'Paying' the Devil is caulking the devil seam.
• Extremis – (also known as “in extremis”) the point under International Rules of the Road at which the privileged (or stand-on) vessel on collision course with a burdened (or give-way) vessel determines it must maneuver to avoid a collision. Prior to extremis, the privileged vessel must maintain course and speed and the burdened vessel must maneuver to avoid collision.
• First rate – The classification for the largest sailing warships of the 17th through 19th centuries. They had 3 masts, 850+ crew and 100+ guns.
• Fly by night – A sail requiring little attention, thus safe to use at night, when monitoring it would be dificult.
• Footloose – If the foot of a sail is not secured properly, it is footloose, and it dances randomly in the wind.
• Freeze the balls off a brass monkey - Nothing to do with unfortunate anatomical frostbite. Onboard a ship of war, a monkey was a bronze plate with indentations sized and spaced to form a firm base for a pyramidal stack of cannon balls, keeping them at the ready for the gunners. Bronze was used because it doesn't corrode in nautical conditions, but unfortunately it has a significantly different coefficient of thermal expansion than the cast iron cannon balls. When the temperature dropped, the monkey shrank more than the cannon balls, making the base no longer fit the stack of cannon balls properly. If it was cold enough, the cannon balls would escape.
  
• Garbled - Garbling was the prohibited practice of mixing rubbish with the cargo.
• Give a Wide Berth - To anchor a ship far enough away from other ships prevent collisions when they swung on their anchors with the wind or tide.
• Grog – Watered-down pusser's rum consisting of half a gill with equal part of water, issued to all seamen over twenty. (CPOs and POs were issued with neat rum) From the British Admiral Vernon who, in 1740, ordered the men's ration of rum to be watered down. He was called "Old Grogram" because he often wore a grogram coat), and the watered rum came to be called 'grog'.
• Groggy – Too much grog.
• Hand over fist – To climb steadily upwards, from the motion of a sailor climbing shrouds on a sailing ship (originally "hand over hand").
• Holiday – A gap in the coverage of newly applied paint, slush, tar or other preservative.
• In the offing – In the water visible from on board a ship.
• To Know the Ropes - There were miles of cordage in the rigging of a square rigged ship. The only way of keeping track of and knowing the function of all of these lines was to know where they were located. It took an experienced seaman to know the ropes.
• Leeway - Unless a ship is sailing directly downwind, she is not moving in the direction she is facing. Instead, she moves, at least a little, towards the lee or downwind... she is said to be making leeway. A prudent captain, when sailing near a lee shore, would always allow sufficient room so that the leeway his ship made did not carry him ashore.
  
• Loggerhead – An iron caulking hammer, used for driving caulking into seams and (occasionally) in a fight. Hence: 'at loggerheads'.
• Loose cannon – A loose cannon, weighing thousands of pounds, would crush anything and anyone in its path, and possibly even knock a hole in the hull, thus endangering the seaworthiness of the whole ship.
• Overbear – To sail downwind directly at another ship, stealing the wind from its sails.
• Over a barrel – Adult sailors were flogged on the back or shoulders while tied to a grating, but boys were beaten instead on the posterior (often bared), with a cane or cat, while bending, often tied down, over the barrel of a gun; also known as (kissing) the gunner's daughter.
• Pipe down – A signal on the bosun's pipe to signal the end of the day, requiring lights (and smoking pipes) to be extinguished and silence from the crew.
• Press Into Service - The British navy filled their ships' crew quotas by kidnapping men off the streets and forcing them into service. This was called Impressment and was done by Press Gangs.
• Rummage sale – A sale of damaged cargo (from French arrimage).
• Scuttlebutt - A butt was a barrel. Scuttle meant to chop a hole in something. The scuttlebutt was a water barrel with a hole cut into it so that sailors could reach in and dip out drinking water. The scuttlebutt was the place where the ship's gossip was exchanged.
• Shakes – Staves of barrels or casks broken down after being emptied to save space below. They are worth very little, leading to the phrase "no great shakes".
• Skysail – A sail set very high, above the royals. Only carried by a few ships.
• Skyscraper – A small, triangular sail, above the skysail. Used in light winds on a very few ships.
• Slush – Greasy substance obtained by boiling or scraping the fat from empty salted meat storage barrels, or the floating fat residue after boiling the crew's meal. In the Royal Navy, the perquisite of the cook who could sell it or exchange it (usually for alcohol) with other members of the crew. Used for greasing parts of the running rigging of the ship and therefore valuable to the master and bosun.
• Slush Fund – The money obtained by the cook selling slush ashore. Used for the benefit of the crew (or the cook).
• Son of a gun – The space between the guns was used as a semi-private place for trysts with prostitutes and wives, which sometimes led to birth of children with disputed parentage. When parentage of a baby born onboard was indeterminate, the child was entered on the ship's books as the "son of a gun".
  
• Square meal – A sufficient quantity of food. Meals on board ship were served to the crew on a square wooden plate in harbor or at sea in good weather.
  
• Squared away – Yards held rigidly perpendicular to their masts and parallel to the deck. This was rarely the best trim of the yards for efficiency but made a pretty sight for inspections and in harbor.
  
• Taken aback – An inattentive helmsmen might allow the dangerous situation to arise where the wind is blowing into the sails 'backwards', causing a sudden unintended tack or jibe.
• Taking the wind out of his sails - Sailing in a manner so as to steal or divert wind from another ship's sails.
• Three sheets to the wind – On a three-masted ship, having the sheets of the three lower courses loose will result in the ship meandering aimlessly downwind.
  
• Toe the line or Toe the mark – At parade, sailors and soldiers were required to stand in line, their toes in line with a seam on the deck.
• Touch and go – The bottom of the ship touching the bottom, but not grounding.
• Under the weather – Serving a watch on the weather side of the ship, exposed to wind and spray.

Nautical terminology - you know more than you may think