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From: "Harold Torode" <>
Subject: Re: Word Origins
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 19:55:04 -0000


Joan

>I have always been interested in word origins ever since I found out where
>the word POSH came from. I am thinking of collecting them all and putting
>them on my website, do any of you have I can include?

A copy of postings I made to the "words" list, so you may already have seen
them, but here are a few words, and the possible origin they came from:

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month
after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all
the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar
was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know
today as the
"honeymoon."

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when
customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own
pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your
P's and Q's."

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim
or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the
whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by
this practice.

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes...when
you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to
sleep on. that's where the phrase, "good night, sleep tight" came from.

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated
that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

Being someone who served before the mast, man and boy, for most of my life,
I thought it might be interesting to look up words associated with or
derived from the life of ships and sailors.

For instance do you use the term windfall meaning an unexpected gift or
financial gain. This term came from the time when both in the US and
Britain, landowners were not allowed to fell trees for timber as they were
required by the governments of the time for building ships. They could
however process any timber which had been blown down during gale.

The word aloof meaning distant or apart actually comes from a Dutch sailing
term of the 16th century loef meaning to windward. Sailing to windward of
other ships allowed you to draw apart from them.

Back to cannabis and hemp, early sails were woven from this and that's where
the name canvas came from, originally taken from the Greek word Kannabis.

The term "cash on the nail" actually comes from the ports of Bristol and the
Corn Exchange in Liverpool in the mid 1500s. Nails were the brass pillers
set into the ground in front of the council house for the benefit of the
merchants who used them as small tables on which to carry out their
transactions. Thus "cash on the nail" came to mean a cash transaction rather
than one dealing with credit.

The endearing term "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"
didn't in fact have anything to do with the animal of that name.:-) A monkey
was a pallet used to hold and carry cannon balls. Usually made of iron,
ships would have brass monkeys for ceremonial occassions. If it got cold
enough the brass would shrink much quicker than the iron cannon balls, and
the balls, usually built up into a pyramid shape, would fall off.

Finally for today. Government comes from the Latin verb guberno which meant
to steer, specifically a ship, as the word gubernaculum was the word for a
ships rudder.

Posh is in fact an acronym of Port Out Starboard Home. In the days of the
British empire, those who had the money or position to demand it, chose
cabins on those sides of the ship for sailings to distant parts such as
India. i.e. the north facing cabin. These were much cooler and therefore
made travelling more pleasant.

A punkah-louvre is actually a mixture of Indian and French. In case you
haven't come across one before, they are the swiveling bits where the air
comes out of an air conditioning system such as you would find on a ship or
airplane. The word punkah itself refers to the large sheet type of swinging
frame used to fan the air. The person who pulled the ropes to make it work,
normally from outside the window of the room, was a punkah walla.

Another walla, was the dobhy walla or laundry man. Dobhy is another common
word in the Royal Navy, although I'm not sure of the correct spelling for
this one.

The term "all above board" again comes from the time of large sailing ships.
Above board literally meant on deck where you could be seen rather than
below the boards (planks) were actions wouldn't be seen by the officers.

Bamboozle originally came from the Spanish around 1600 and referred to
flying a false flag to confuse or deceive the enemy.

to "wipe the slate clean" comes from the fact that ships logs were first
written on slate during the watch. At the end of the watch (four hours
generally) this information was then transfered to the deck log book and the
slate wiped clean for the next watch to use.

The figurehead is probably well known as the nominal leader with no real
power, and also as the figure at the head (stem) of a ship placed there
originally so that the ship (believed to be a living thing) would have eyes
to see where it was going. It probably started off as simple eyes painted
either side of the bows, but certainly ended up more generally as a topless
lady. Trust sailors.<G>

And finally the name "jack tar" actually came from the habits of jacks
(lower deck sailors) using tar to paint on their pigtails both to keep them
out
of the way, and for protection

Harold

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