ORIGIN OF SEA TERMS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20426, 5 June 1928, Page 4

ORIGIN OF SEA TERMS.

Speaking at the annual dinner of the Master Mariners’ Company in London on March 21 Mr Baldwin, the Prime Minister, referred to the origin of words in common use among British marines. The word “anchor” came to England from the Romans, via the Angles and the Saxon. The Vikings came along to waken them up, and they left behind words like “ keel,” “ reef/* “ stern,and the “ wake ” of a ship, which was the phrase used for the track through the ice when the Vikings’ ship travelled from Norway to Greenland. From the our sailors bought hack the wod pilot, which took the place of the Old English word “ loder man.” From Italy came “ brigantine,” from the Dutch “ skipper,” “lugger,” and “smack”; from the Spaniards “ cargo ” and “ binnacle.” Even almost in our own lifetime descendants of our own name in America had sent across to this country the familiar words “schooner” and “slipper.” He wanted to see the seamen words, connected with the sailing ships, kept in our language, even though the sailing ship might be passing away. Our sailors had exported our terms into nearly every language on earth, and he, who had always had an immense faith in the plain and simple people of his country, wished that mo care of the English language might be left to the sailors to look after. Even within the last generation things _ never had been named by them —good English words like “ battleship,” “ ironclad,” “dreadnought,” words that hit you like a hammer. Other people went floundering about inventing words like “ kinematogranh ” and " hydro-aeroplane.”