Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1924. PHRASEOLOGY OF THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1924. PHRASEOLOGY OF THE SEA

When discussing a few days ago the startling proposal to expunge the terms "starboard" and "port" from the seaman's vocabulary, and to substitute the landsman's tame equivalents of "right" and "left*" we referred to the relatively recent substitution of the terms now attacked for the "starboard" and "larboard" of Nelson and Drake and many previous generations. When "port" was substituted for "larboard" by an Admiralty Order in 1844, the change was a comparar tively simple matter, since convenience and safety both protested against continuing to denote a vital distinction by terms so easily conr fused as "starboard" and "larr board," and the word "port" had for centuries been making headway in unofficial use. The change that is now proposed may have a much harder struggle. The proposal is much more radical, the need for it is much less obvious, and the reinT forcement of partial custom which eased the reform of eighty years ago is entirely lacking. The conservatism of the sea is hard tq fight. Mr. Clark Russell, who knew it from the inside, writes: ,

There never yet was a good thing inr troduced into the sea life but that old sailors with faces of fire objected and protested. . . There is no bigot like, a sea-bigot, and amongst the reasons why the progress of naval architecture was slow dqwn to the age of steam you may include the prejudice and ignorance of the sailor.

Fortunately or unfortunately for the sailor, there are plenty of landsmen* at the Admiralty to put him right on this point if his conserve tism proves unreasonable. Neither Lord Chelmsford nor his Undersecretary, Mr. G. ; Ammon, have, so far as we are aware, had any nautical experience. If 'they have, they have an advantage over most of their predecessors from Mr. W. H. Smith, the original of Sir Joseph Porter, X.C.8., downwards, and for a long way back. It must, however, be admitted that this is an issue on which the prejudices of the sailor may confidently look to the landsman for a sympathetic hearing. On historical, literary, and sentimental grounds, this venerable and picturesque phraseology of the sea, often dating back to the days of the Vikings and of Alfred, the founder of our Navy, make a powerful appeal to us all. It is not an appeal which can be allowed any weight on a question of life and death. Itjhe reformers can prove that the possibility of confusion between "starboard" and "port" is such as even on very rare occasions to raise* the question to that level, their case is proved and must be allowed to prevail. But the public1 sentiment is quite strong enough to insist that the seaman gets fair-play, and to protect him and his vocabulary from the rash intrusion of new brooms on the track of imaginary troubles.

Any literary loss involved in the change would, of course, be negligible for the simple reason that the exclusion of a word from technical use at sea does not effect its expulsion from the language. The novelist of contemporary sea^-lifo might be compelled to forego a touch of local colour here and there, but the rest of us, from the poet downwards, would'be just as free as before. In citing Tennyson'a " Jtollaa to starboardi rolled

to larboard" as a passage in whiuh tbo new phraseology would have worked havoc, we omitted to note that, though he wrote while "larboard" was still correct at sea,, the issue of the Admiralty Order a yea* or two later did not compel him to revise. Tennyson's reference to 'moonless Mars" had to be amended when the planet was found to have, satellites, but his "rolled to larboard" still stands, and his successors are free to follow in h}s steps, whatever the Admiralty may say. It is, however, to be noted that there is high authority for saying tha-fc the example is an evil one. One of the few blemishes that Addison found in Milton was hjs use of tins very word. The last Fault, he writes,; which. I shall take notice of in Milton's stile is hf, mre? u? nt, USI? of wh*t *c Learned call Technical Words, or Terms of Art. It is one of the great. Beauties of Poetry, tp make hard things intelligible, and to deliver what is abstruse of itself in such easy Language as may be understood by ordinary Readers. Besides that the knowledge of a Poet should rather eeem born, with him, or inspired than drawn from Books and Systems. I have often wondered how Mr. Dryden could translate a Passage of Virgil after the following manner: Tack to the Larboard, and stand off , to Sea, Veer Star-board Sea, and Land. "~' 1 Milton makes use of Larboard in the same manner. The single lapse of which Milton was guilty was in the lines: Or when Ulysses on the Larboard shun'd : Charybdis, or by the other whirlpool steer'd. ' ■ Bentley's criticism was,'as usual, a good deal harsher than Addison's: , "The Lartord" in Heroic Stile is .abominable. Let Dryden disparage Virgil with' Larbord and Starbo'rd • I am glad that I can clear Milton from this vile distich. \ Bentley applied what was his usual remedy for any passage of Milton that-he disliked; he struck it out. "Larbord" was thus cleared out of "Paradise Lost" as >it was cleared off 4he bridge and the forecastle a century or so later. "Starboard," representing ; "stearbord" or steering side, because the old steering paddle was worked on the right side of a ship, still stands. The side to which the steersman's back was turned was called the "baecbot-d," and the term survives in the French "babord," which, with, "tribord," a corruption of "steerbord" for the other side seems liable to much the same conr fugipn as "starboard" and "larboard.'l In English "larboard," which is conjeotered to represent 'lade-bord," or the lading side; took the place of "baecbord," and in turn yielded to "port," of ,which the origin is unknown. "Port" and "starboard" are now threatened with a common ruin, but before j they die a deal o f prejudice and sentiment and national scepticism will want to know the reason why. /