It is very evident that Dryden perfectly understood the term as signifying the ropes at the clews or corners of sails. “Quarter-deck, the short upper deck.” This is as incorrect as “Poop, the hindmost part of the ship.” The poop lies aft, to be sure, but it is no more the hindmost part of the ship than the mizzen-mast is—any more than the quarter-deck need necessarily be “short” or “upper”—in the sense clearly intended by Johnson. “Overhale, to spread over.” Overhale then signified what is now meant by overhaul. To overhaul a rope is to drag it through a block; to overhaul a ship is to search her. It certainly does not mean “to spread over,” nor, in my judgment, does Spenser employ it in that sense in the triplet that Johnson appends. “Loofed, gone to a distance.” Loofed in Johnson’s day denoted a ship that had luffed—i.e. put her helm down to come closer to the wind. “Keel, the bottom of the ship.” No doubt the keel is at the bottom of the ship, but sailors would no more understand it as a ship’s bottom than they would accept the word “beam” as a definition of the word “deck.” Johnson gives “helm” as “the steerage, the rudder.” It is plain that he is here under the impression that “steerage” is pretty much the same as “steering.” In reality the helm is no more the rudder than it is the tiller, the wheel, the wheel-chains, or ropes and the relieving-tackles. It is a generic term, and means the whole apparatus by which a ship is steered. “Belay, to belay a rope; to splice; to mend a rope by laying one end over another.” To belay a rope is to make it fast.[[34]]
[34]. Bailey correctly defines this word: “to fasten any running rope so that when it is haled it cannot run out again.” Either Johnson doubted Bailey (whom he quotes nevertheless) as an authority, or consulted him for his sea-words at capricious intervals.
These examples could be multiplied; but it is not my purpose to criticize Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary. Yet, as it is admittedly the basis of most of the dictionaries in use, it is worth while calling attention to errors which have survived without question or correction into the later compilations.
These and the like blunders merely indicate the extreme difficulty that confronts, not indeed the etymologist—for I nowhere discover any signs of research in the direction of marine originals—but the plain definer of nautical words. The truth is, before a man undertakes to explain the language of sailors he should go to sea. It is only by mixing with sailors, by hearing and executing orders, that one can distinguish the shades of meaning amidst the scores of subtleties of the mariner’s speech. It is, of course, hard to explain what the sailor himself could not define save by the word he himself employs. Take, for example, “inboard” and “aboard.” You say of a man entering a ship that he has gone “aboard her;” of a boat hanging at the davits that it must be swung “inboard.” There is a nicety here difficult of discrimination, but it is fixed nevertheless. You would not say of a man in a ship that he is “inboard,” nor of davits that they must be slewed “aboard.” So of “aft” and “abaft.” They both mean the same thing, but they are not applied in the same way. A man is “aft” when he is on the quarter-deck or poop; you could not say he is “abaft.” But suppose him to be beyond the mizzen-mast, you would say “he is standing abaft the mizzen-mast,” not “he is standing aft it.”
Peculiarities of expression abound in sea-language to a degree not to be paralleled by the eccentricities of other vocational dialects. A man who sleeps in his bunk or hammock all night, or through his watch on deck, “lies in” or “sleeps in.” But neither term is applicable if he sleeps through his watch below. “Idlers,” as they are called, such as the cook, steward, butcher, and the like, are said to have “all night in”—that is, “all night in their bunks or hammocks.” To “lay” is a word plentifully employed in directions which to a landsman should render its signification hopelessly bewildering. “This word ‘lay,’” says Richard Dana, in a note to “Two Years Before the Mast,” “which is in such general use on board ship, being used in giving orders instead of ‘go,’ as ‘Lay forward!’ ‘Lay aft!’ ‘Lay aloft!’ etc., I do not understand to be the neuter verb lie mis-pronounced, but to be the active verb ‘lay’ with the objective case understood, as ‘Lay yourselves forward!’ ‘Lay yourselves aft!’ etc. At all events, lay is an active verb at sea and means go.” It is, however, used in other senses, as to “lay up a rope,” “the ship lay along,” the old expression for a vessel pressed down by the force of the wind. Other terms strike the land-going ear as singular contradictions, such as “to make land,” to “fetch such and such a place”—i.e. to reach it by sailing, but properly to arrive at it by means of beating or tacking; “jump aloft,” run aloft; “tumble up,” come up from below; “bear a hand,” look sharp, make haste; “handsomely,” as in the expression, “Lower away handsomely!” meaning, lower away with judgment, but promptly; “bully,” a term of kindly greeting, as “Bully for you!”[[35]]
[35]. This and other terms must now be called Americanisms. But they are Americanisms only as are other old words which the people of the United States have preserved from the language of their English forefathers, but which on this side of the water are obsolete, or employed with a different meaning.
The difficulties of the lexicographer desiring the inclusion of nautical terms in his list are not a little increased by the sailor’s love of contractions, or his perversities of pronunciation. Let me cite a few examples. The word “treenail,” for instance—a wooden spike—in Jack’s mouth becomes “trunnel.” “To reach” is to sail along close-hauled; but the sailor calls it “ratch.” “Gunwale,” as everybody knows, is “gunnel,” and so spelt by the old marine writers. “Crossjack,” a sail that sets upon a yard called the “crossjack yard,” on the mizzen-mast, is pronounced “crojjeck.” The “strap” of a block is always termed “strop;” “streak,” a single range of planks running from one end of the ship or boat to the other, is “strake;” “to serve,” that is, to wind small stuff, such as spun-yarn, round a rope, is “to sarve.” The numerous contractions, however, are pre-eminently illustrative of the two distinctive qualities of the English sailor—nimbleness and alertness. Everything must be done quickly at sea: there is no time for sesquipedalianism. If there be a long word it must be shortened somehow. To spring, to jump, to leap, to tumble, to keep his eyes skinned, to hammer his fingers into fish-hooks: these are the things required of Jack. He dances, he sings, he drinks, he is in all senses a lively hearty; but underlying his intellectual and physical caper-cutting is deep perception of the sea as a mighty force, a remorseless foe. The matter seems trifling, yet the national character is in it.
A great number of words are used by sailors which are extremely disconcerting to landsmen, as apparently sheer violations of familiar sounds and the images they convey. To lash: ashore, this is to beat with a whip, to thrash; at sea it means to make anything fast by securing it with a rope. To foul: when a sailor speaks of one thing fouling another, he does not intend to say that one thing soils or dirties another, but that it has got mixed in a manner to make separation a difficulty. “Our ship drove and fouled a vessel astern.” A line is foul when it is twisted, when it jams in a block. “Seize” is to attach: it does not mean, “to grasp.” “Seizing” is the line or lanyard or small stuff by which anything is made fast. “Whip:” this word naturally conveys the idea of the implement for flogging, for driving; in reality, it signifies a line rove through a single block. “Whip it up!” hoist it up by means of the tackle called a whip. “Get it whipped!” get it hoisted by a whip. “Sweep” looks like a fellow who cleans a chimney; at sea it is a long oar. “Board” is not a plank, but the distance measured by a ship or vessel sailing on either tack, and beating against the wind before she puts her helm down for the next “ratch.” “Guy” has nothing to do with the fifth of November, nor with a person absurdly dressed, but is a rope used for steadying a boom. “Ribands” are pieces of timber nailed outside the ribs of a wooden ship. “Ear-rings” are ropes for reefing or for securing the upper corners of a sail to the yard-arms.
The bewilderment increases when Jack goes to zoology for terms. “Fox” is a lashing made by twisting rope-yarns together. “Spanish fox” is a single yarn untwisted and “laid up” the contrary way. “Monkey” is a heavy weight of iron used in shipbuilding for driving in long bolts. “Cat” is a tackle used for hoisting up the anchor. “Mouse” or “mousing” was formerly a ball of yarns fitted to the collars of stays. “To mouse” is to put turns of rope-yarn round the hook of a block to prevent it from slipping. “Spider” is an iron outrigger. “Lizard” is a piece of rope with a “thimble” spliced into it. “Whelps” are pieces of wood or iron bolted on the main-piece of a windlass, or on a winch. “Leech”[[36]] is the side-edge of a sail. “Sheepshank” is the name given to a manner of shortening a rope by hitches over a bight of its own part.
[36]. Sometimes spelt “leach,” and perhaps correctly. “To leach” formerly signified to “cut up.” In a sense the “leach,” or “leech,” may be taken as meaning the cut sides of the sail. Leach also meant “hard work.”