Life in the Time of Sailing Ships –
Part III
By Jayne Davis
Part I of Life in theTime of Sailing Ships looked at some phrases in everyday language that
originated in the days of sail. Part II looked at living on a warship. For Part
III, I’m returning to some of those everyday phrases.
Slush fund
The meaning today is a
reserve of money used for illicit purposes. The meaning has changed over the
years, as it was originally a fund used to buy small items for a ship’s crew,
such as books for them to read.
So why ‘slush’? It is
an unappetising explanation.
Ships’ crews ate a lot
of salted meat. The cooking for all the men was done in a central galley, and
for the salt beef or pork this consisted of boiling it up in large vats. The
fat floated to the top, having much the same consistency as the slush we get
when snow partially melts. The cook would skim this off and store it for sale.
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| The galley on HMS Victory. Note the tiles to prevent falling embers setting fire to deck planks. The fire would be put out in rough weather or when going into action—there is nowhere to run to if a ship catches fire at sea.. |
Learn the ropes or Know the ropes
Knowing the ropes is
to understand how to do something. Sailing ships use ropes—lots of ropes!
The photos below are
of the Cutty Sark, a 150-year old tea clipper now on permanent display in
Greenwich, London. It was the fastest ship of its day.
 |
| Just some of the rigging on the Cutty Sark. |
 |
| Some of the running rigging on Cutty Sark. These are some of the ropes used to control the yards and sails. You need to know which one to pull on. |
It seems obvious that
the phrase must have come from the days of sailing ships, but this is disputed.
It has been suggested that the phrase originated in the theatre, where ropes
were used for raising and lowering scenery, and the word wasn’t seen in print
until the beginning of the 19th century.
I’m sticking with the
nautical version – even if the phrase did not originate with sailing ships, it
is very appropriate.
To the bitter end
Not bitter as in
lemons…
The photo below shows
two sets of bitts on a tall ship (with ropes very neatly coiled). The bitts are the pairs of posts almost hidden
by the rope.
 |
| Bitts, with cable wound around them. |
An anchor or mooring cable would have one end wound around the bitts to fasten it to the ship. As the rope was paid out, it would eventually come to the bitter end—the end attached to the bitts. So the bitter end is when you can go no further.
Again, this is
disputed, but it sounds good to me.
Taken aback
As I’ve given you two
potentially dodgy phrases, I’ll finish with this one which is more definite.
Taken aback today is
to be startled or surprised. The first things to be taken aback were sails, the
phrase being first recorded in the 17th century. It means when the
wind gets on the wrong side of a sail. This can happen due to a sudden shift in
the wind, or due to a course change. If this happens accidently, it is not
normally a good thing, but sometimes sails are ‘backed’ on purpose, when a ship
heaves to, or if it is caught ‘in irons’. The principles are the same for tall
ships like the Cutty Sark and for sailing dinghies, but it is much easier to
explain using the latter!
Heaving to is bringing
a ship to a stop in the water, without anchoring. A ship being boarded for
customs checks, for example, would have to heave to. On a sailing ship, this is
done by having some of the sails backed. These backed sails push the ship back
while others are trying to move it forwards.
 |
Heaving to.
A sailing ship wanting
to go in the direction the wind is coming from (into the wind) has to tack back
and forth. Each time the ship turns, it has to pass though a position where the
wind is coming from dead ahead. If the ship doesn’t have enough momentum in its
turn, it can get stuck pointing directly into the wind, unable to move or turn
further. As the ship is hardly moving the rudder doesn’t work. It is referred
to as being ‘in irons’. This is an example of a phrase going from everyday like
into shipboard life—a convict in manacles (in irons) cannot move, and nor can a
sailing ship in this position.
The way out of this,
as I rapidly learned in my dinghy sailing days, is to back the jib. This pushes
the boat backwards, giving enough movement for the rudder to work and put the
boat in a position where both sails can fill. You then try again, hoping not
too many people were watching.
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| Backing the jib to escape an embarrassing situation. |
Further reading:
The Phrase Finder
website discusses lots of phrases that have nautical origins, and debunks some
that seem to be obviously related to the sea but are not.
The
Mrs MacKinnons
England, 1799
Major Matthew Southam returns from India, hoping to
put the trauma of war behind him and forget his past. Instead, he finds a
derelict estate and a family who wish he'd died abroad.
Charlotte MacKinnon married without love to avoid
her father’s unpleasant choice of husband. Now a widow with a young son, she
lives in a small Cotswold village with only the money she earns by her writing.
Matthew is haunted by his past, and Charlotte is
fearful of her father’s renewed meddling in her future. After a disastrous
first meeting, can they help each other find happiness?
4.7* average on Amazon, available on Kindle Unlimited.
Jayne Davis
Jayne Davis writes historical romances set in the late
Georgian/Regency era, published as both ebooks and paperbacks. There are more
articles on her blog. [please link to http://www.jaynedavisromance.co.uk/]
She was hooked on Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer as a
teenager, and longed to write similar novels herself. Real life intervened, and
she had several careers, including as a non-fiction author under her real name.
That wasn't quite the writing
career she had in mind...
Finally, she got around to polishing up stories written
for her own amusement in long winter evenings, and became the kind of author
she’d dreamed of in her teens. Her first book, The Mrs MacKinnons, was published in 2018. She is now working on
the first few books in the Marstone Series, set in the late Georgian/early
Regency period.
Book 1 in the Marstone Series, Sauce for the Gander, will be published in early 2019.
