STRANGE ORIGINS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 124, 21 November 1931, Page 22

STRANGE ORIGINS

f'The devil to pay" is a common enough expression, but how many people know that it ia nautical in origin'? According to "Naval Customs and Traditions," by Bear-Admiral Gerard Wells, the complete saying should be: "The devil to pay aud only half a bucket of pitch." The "devil" was "a very large, important, and difficult seam, of the ship to caulk, and half v, bucket of pitch would be totally inadequate to 'pay' it." To "pay," by tho way, means to pour in hot pitch after caulking, to defend the oakum from the wet, and is derived from poix, tho Trench word for pitch (says "John o' London's Weekly").

It is probable that "the devil to pay" has half a dozen other suggested, origins—what old saying hasn't?—but there is no denying the ingenuity of this one. Kear-Admiral Wclls's book is full of similar instances. Wo often hear, for example, of people "coming to loggerheads." But happily they rarely do it literally. Loggerheads "wore heavy iron bars which were heated and then used to melt the pitch for caulking. It is obvious that in an argument they proved to bo most useful weapons."

When they "came to loggerheads" at sea, one imagines, the decks wcro speedily cleared for action!

Many expressions, although they still survive in the sailor's vocabulary, have completely lost their original meaning. Most of them date back to the old days of sailing ships, often hundreds of years. The term forecastle "came into use in the twelfth century, when castles, similar to the war buildings on shore, were added both fore and aft to Norman ships. A survival of the nomenclature of "after castle" is found in the manner in which the gear of the quarterdecknten is marked —namely "AX," as opposed to that of the forecastlemen, which is marked "FX." It has survived probably because it is much easier to cut AX with a service knife than QD (quarterdeck)."

Midshipman, again, has entirely changed its meaning: "It originally denoted the men stationed amidships—i.e., under the captain's eye, and were usually prime seamen. The rating of midshipman was purely a ship's rating down to the end of the Napoleonic wars, and a midshipman could bo disrated by his commanding officer and made to servo before tho mast."

The first mention of midshipman, says Bear-Admiral Wells, occurs in 1643, "at which time it does not appear to have beeu a rating leadiug to any personal honour." At the end of

SAILOR MEN'S SAYINGS

the eighteenth century, however, the term came to be applied to young gentlemen who were training for tho servico on board ship. "Midshipman only became-a naval rank, after the Peace of 1815, when the number of demobilised midshipmen and the few ships commissioned made it both desirable and possible for the Admiralty to assiimo responsibility for their appointment." Even on shore we speak of "splicing the main brace," implying the desirability of a drink. This expression, it seems, sprang from the custom of giving a man a tot of rum as a rewarj when he had been employed on the difficult and highly-skilled task of putting a splice in the main brace."

.Those who are looking for a new way of saying that it is time for the first drink might- point out that "the sua is over the foro yard." Indeed, the land-lubber, with a thirst for good expressions, may learu lnuch from this book. If you wish to get rid of an unwanted person say "Top your boom." It sounds more polite.than the bald "Go away.".

There are possibilities, too, in the food line. For "stew" try the expression, "hoosh-my-goosb," and for breakfast, instead of sausages or kippers, have "bangers" or "Spi'thead pheasants." "One-eyed steak" sounds better than "bloater," and "under ground fruit" makes a change froiii vegetables.

"Banyan days," which might be translated "binge," is another term that has lost the meaning it once had: "The Banyan days in the old Navy were Monday, Wednesday, and -Friday. The Banians were a class of Hindu merchants who, being of the Vaisya caste, abstained from the use of meat. Ships on the East Indian station probably adopted the word to signify the days on which no mean ration was issued, plum duff being served in lieu, and tho expression became general throughout the Navy. The meat ration was so bad that the meatless day- was looked forward to, and so in time the Banyan day became associated with occasions of feasting and plenty."

The names of sails have all kinds of unexpected origins. A "spinnaker," for instance, was first set in the cutter Niobo in ISGS, and the sail was for the first few months called a "niob." The Niobe, however,, had a more famous rival, the Sphinx, and she almost simultaneously sot a similar sail. The sailors called her the Spins, and they called the peculiar sail the "spinxer," which name prevailed over the word "niob," and became the common word "spinnaker."