Friday, August 23, 2024

Why Is English Awash in Sailors' Jargon?



When we say that someone talks like a sailor, that usually refers to their swearing. But in reality, we all do it. The English we use today is awash with jargon originally used by sailors, and we can't fathom why. It likely had to do with large crews on long sea voyages who got used to all those nautical terms, and when anchored on land they kept using them. Their children learned the ropes and by and large continued until these terms infiltrated English permanently, the way they infiltrated the first half of this sentence. Okay, but that's true of all careers. Linguist Dr. Erica Brozovsky of Otherwords  tells us about the seafaring origins of a bunch of words, including, strangely, "blog." I like the cut of her jib. From her, we learn that all this came about because of that one thing we blame everything on: the British Empire.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I assume Dr Erica has researched this stuff but some sound like quite a stretch to those origins.
xoxoxoBruce