[41]. Since this was written I find in Bailey, “To swag: to force or bear downwards as a weight does to hang on.” This settles the paternity of “swig.”
Blocks, a very distinctive feature in the equipment of a vessel, get their names in numerous cases from their shape or conveniency. A cant-block is so called because in whalers it is used for the tackles which cant or turn the whale over when it is being stripped of its blubber; a fiddle-block, because it has the shape of that instrument; a fly-block, because it shifts its position when the tackle it forms a part of is hauled upon; leading-blocks, because they are used for guiding the direction of any purchase; hook-blocks, because they have a hook at one end; sister-blocks, because they are two blocks formed out of one piece of wood, and suggest a sentimental character by intimate association; snatch-blocks, because a rope can be snatched or whipped through the sheave without the trouble of reeving; tail-blocks, because they are fitted with a short length or tail of rope by which they are lashed to the gear; shoulder-blocks, because their shape hints at a shoulder, there being a projection left on one side of the shell to prevent the falls from jamming. In this direction the marine philologist will find his work all plain sailing. The sources whence the sails, or most of them, take their appellations are readily grasped when the leading features of the apparently complicated fabric on high are understood. The stay-sails obtain their names from the stays on which they travel. “Top-sail” was so entitled when it was literally the top or uppermost sail. The origin of the word “royal”[[42]] for the sail above the topgallant-sail we must seek in the fancy that found the noble superstructure of white cloths crowned by that heaven-seeking space of canvas.
[42]. This sail was, on its introduction, called “topgallant-royal.”
The etymology of “hitches” is not far to seek. But first of the “hitch” itself. “To hitch, to catch, to move by jerks.” I know not where it is used but in the following passage—nor here know well what it means:
‘Whoe’er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides in a verse, or hitches in a rhyme.’—Pope.
So writes Dr. Johnson. Had he looked into the old “Voyages,” he would have found “hitch” repeated very often indeed.[[43]] From the nautical standpoint, he defines it accurately enough as “to catch.” Pope’s use of the term puzzled the Doctor, and he blundered into “to move by jerks.” But Pope employs it as a sailor would; he hitches the culprit in a line—that is, takes an intellectual “turn” with his verse about him, or, as the poet puts it, suffers the person to “hitch” himself. To hitch is to fasten, to secure a rope so that it can run out no further. From “hitch” proceed a number of terms whose paternity is very easily distinguished. The “Blackwall hitch” takes its name from the famous point of departure of the vanished procession of Indiamen and Australian liners;[[44]] the “harness hitch,” from its form, which suggests a bit and reins; “midshipman’s hitch,” from the facility with which it may be made; “rolling hitch,” because it is formed of a series of rolling turns round the object it is intended to secure, and other rolling turns yet over its own part; a “timber hitch,” because of its usefulness in hoisting spars and the like through the ease of its fashioning and the security of its jamming. The etymology of knots, again, is largely found in their forms. “The figure-of-eight knot” is of the shape of the figure eight; the diamond readily suggests the knots which bear its name (single and double diamond-knots); the “Turk’s-head knot” excellently imitates a turban. To some knots and splices the inventors have given their names, such as “Elliot’s splice” and “Matthew Walker” knot. The origin of this knot is thus related by a contributor to the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle:—
[43]. Indeed, any old Dictionary would have supplied the meaning.
[44]. As does the “Blackwall lead,” signifying a rope taken under a pin.
“Over sixty years ago an old sailor, then drawing near to eighty years of age, said that when he was a sailor-boy there was an old rigger, named Matthew Walker, who, with his wife, lived on board an old covered hulk, moored near the Folly End, Monkwearmouth Shore; that new ships when launched were laid alongside of this hulk to be rigged by Walker and his gang of riggers; that also old ships had their rigging refitted at the same place; and that Matthew Walker was the inventor of the lanyard knot, now known by the inventor’s name wherever a ship floats.”