Not Enough Room to Swing a Cat: Naval slang and its everyday usage

INTRODUCTION

During the writing of this book one question kept coming up: why write another book on naval slang when there are others on the subject already out there? I admit, there are a number of fine books already published that have looked at naval slang. Some of these have even proved useful in writing this book. If that’s the case, does the world need another volume on naval slang?

Most of the books that look at naval slang do so in alphabetical order. Rick Jolly’s Jackspeak and Peter Jeans’ Ship to Shore are organised in this way, which makes them great works of reference, though perhaps not great reading books. Moreover, Jackspeak is specifically aimed at current and ex-service personnel; much of the content within is limited in use to those afloat, while many of the entries in Ship to Shore do not contain contextual material linking them to modern society.

Readers hoping to find an exhaustive dictionary of all slang terms here will be disappointed. I make no apologies for that: what I am interested in are terms that have passed from ‘Jack Tar’ to the ‘landlubbers’ ashore. Even within that limited remit many words and phrases have been omitted; perhaps the chance will come to write a second volume (readers who do find their favourite slang terms missing can send suggestions to the publishers at the relevant address).

What this book does is plant naval slang terms squarely in our everyday existence. I have found naval terms used ashore today in familiar places: war films, newspapers and naval fiction. But naval slang crops up in some unexpected places. From US Presidential speeches to the ramblings of a drunken cartoon robot, words and phrases that originated at sea are all around us: we just need to open our eyes and ears to them. In fact many people today will use naval slang and not even realise it. I hope that this book goes some way towards remedying this situation.

This book is organised by subject matter, thereby placing the words and phrases in context surrounded by other words and phrases dealing with a similar subject. Some entries are interrelated, others stand alone. For instance, readers will find everything relating to food, or ‘munjy’, together. Introducing each chapter is a section contextualising the entries that follow; using ‘munjy’ as the example again, readers will find out what sailors from different periods of time actually ate before going on to look at some of the related phrases in depth. I hope this approach will provide readers with a more rounded experience and understanding of naval slang and will add to, rather than replicate, the literature that already exists.

I have defined slang as any type of informal language used to describe things, activities or circumstances. Quite often slang is a quicker way of saying something or making reference to something. Naval slang is of particular interest in this case as many activities that were undertaken on board a ship had to be done quickly and accurately by sailors; their lives sometimes depended on it. So their language was, and still is, an organic entity, it ebbs and flows like the tide. Some words and phrases appear and fall out of use, only to reappear at a future point in time, sometimes in a completely different context.

A great deal of naval slang comes from the classic age of the sailing man-of-war, roughly 1600–1850, and originated in the Royal Navy. This is not really surprising; it was an age of war, with Britain engaged in a series of conflicts with France, Spain and the newly independent United States – all flexing their maritime muscles at different times. Where possible I have stated where the use of words can be traced to a specific country; for example ‘Gung Ho’ originated in China and was picked up by the US Marine Corps.

As maritime trade and empires rose and fell, the sailor’s vocabulary expanded. Naval slang was once the preserve of the sailor – an incomprehensible language culled from the four corners of the world. The words the sailor picked up, perhaps from Arabic, Old Scandinavian, or even Mandarin Chinese, were employed afloat and brought back to port with him. The subsequent transfer ashore of such words was inevitable, given the contact between sailors and landlubbers in ports across the world and the portrayal of the navy in wider popular culture.

Alongside the geographic expansion, in times of war, when large numbers of men (and in the twentieth century, women) were mobilised in service, naval traditions and language became a shared experience for many. By the end of the Second World War the Royal Navy could boast 866,000 enlisted men and women. The reintroduction of such huge numbers of people back into life ashore after this and other conflicts helped to spread naval slang in the decades following major conflicts.

A short essay examining shore-based perceptions of the sailor has been included as an Appendix.

If this book can do one thing, I hope it helps to show that, as much as the sea can be perceived as a barrier, it can also act as highway, bringing people together and helping to spread ideas, words, phrases and experiences.

A Final Word Of Caution

Of course, some of the terms and words used by sailors fall under that category we might call swearing: i.e. rude, offensive or sexist. In order to provide some examples of the way sailors have often thought of the world around them I have collected a sample of these towards the end of Chapter 9 – Poking Charlie. If you think they might shock or offend you, then you don’t have to look.

1

ALL SHIPSHAPE AND BRISTOL FASHION

From the mighty aircraft carrier to the tiny midget submarine, without ships there would be no navies, no sailors and no naval slang.

Building a navy is an expensive undertaking. For some countries such as Britain and the United States, the navy was, and in some cases still is, a symbol of state power – an instrument with which to influence world events. For other states, naval vessels are a luxury – and can be a source of conflict rather than a safeguard. Throughout history man has interacted with the sea. Ever since seafaring people such as the Phoenicians took to the seas to trade there have been battles at sea and hence the need for specialised fighting vessels. Initially, such ships could combine the duties of a merchantman and a warship but eventually the two needs could only be addressed by diversification, thereby giving the world the man-of-war. Navies serve many purposes: they protect territorial water, they protect maritime trade and they allow a state to project force over a wide area. Navies can influence wars on land, whether by direct action (bombardment or landing troops) or by more subtle means (cutting supply lines and blockading ports). However, different roles require different ships, and different ships need different designs if they are to fulfil their roles adequately.

So what makes a warship a warship? Well, obviously there is some form of offensive capability. This could be just using the ship as a weapon, like the ancient galleys equipped with a ram; it could carry fighting men; or, and this is what most people are familiar with, it could carry offensive weapons systems – cannon, missiles and torpedoes. Warships also need protection, and they need to be stable, safe and habitable. Those who have designed vessels for war have always tried to solve a unique puzzle: namely how to balance carrying offensive armament while retaining a defensive capability, to be seaworthy and provide accommodation for the crew.

Throughout history there are numerous instances of massive loss of life due to some flaw in warship design. Just a couple of examples will show what can happen when a ship design is not ‘A1’. Naval disasters are not new; during the First Punic War (264–241 BC) against Carthage, Rome had two fleets virtually wiped out because of their inherent instability in bad weather, losing around 200,000 men in the process. Another tragic example occurred in 1870: while cruising off Cape Finisterre the Royal Navy’s HMS Captain overturned and went to the bottom taking with her 500 men and her inventor, Captain Cowper Coles. Coles had tried to combine a new technology of guns housed in turrets with an old-style sailing rig. The result was a top-heavy, unstable ship and this caused the disaster that cost so many men their lives. More recent tragedies include the Russian Federation Submarine Kursk, which was lost with 118 men due to faulty torpedoes in August 2000.

Warships have many component parts, from the depths of the hull, through the many and varied decks, to the necessary propulsion (whether that be sails or engines) and each has a role to play. It should be remembered the ship is more than just an instrument of war; it is where men live, and sometimes die, in the service of their country. Naturally, the sailor has a love-hate relationship with the ships he serves on. His very existence depends on the safe construction and fitting of his warship. Many have successfully matched the needs of such design issues, others have not. On occasion the sailor has been let down, either by ill-thought-out designs or by the pressure applied by bureaucrats to keep the costs down. Such waters provide much inspiration for that sailor to apply his inimitable view of the world around him to the colourful language of the sea.

A1

The term ‘A1’ is often used to describe something that is, or was, good or excellent. For instance, ‘that burger I had last night was A1’. It is also a common name for modern business ventures that want to give the impression of being the best in their particular field. In the UK it is particularly favoured by many mini cab firms and Chinese Takeaways that want to appear on the first page of local print or Internet business listings. The term has also had widespread use across the globe, from a 1933 Nazi rocket design and a Macedonian TV station, to an Anglo-Norwegian boy band and an American brand of steak sauce. (The infamous A1 in northern England is certainly not an ‘A1’-standard road.)

The original term ‘A1’ refers to the certificates of seaworthiness as awarded by Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. Edward Lloyd’s coffee house served as the hub for maritime and shipping gossip in late seventeenth-century London. Ever the entrepreneur, Lloyd decided to use this gossip to produce a news sheet which was eventually formalised with the founding of the Register Society in 1760. The first official Register of Ships was printed in 1764 and contained the details of 4,500 ships. The Register consisted of a classification system which would make an assessment of the actual physical state of sailing ships. This system allowed merchants and insurance underwriters to make informed judgements as to hiring, chartering and insuring the ships in question.

The condition of a ship’s hull was classified by the letters A, E, I, O, U, with A being the best category. Equipment such as rigging, sails, masts, anchors and so on, was initially classified with the letters G (good), M (middling) or B (bad). This classification was replaced in 1768–9 by lower case letters for the hulls and numbers for the fittings, with 1 being the best category. The letters were then changed back to upper case, giving the world the famous description ‘A1 at Lloyd’s’. Insurers and merchants would know that any ship categorised as such would be in the very best possible condition. Of course, the wily sailor has often applied the Lloyd’s system to other areas, as Midshipman Alexander Scrimgeour of HMS Invincible observed in 1915:

Yesterday I went to tea with Mrs Hood and family; they have a house on shore near our base, with a tennis court and some excellent strawberry beds. As there are two A1 daughters of seventeen and nineteen, you can bet their hospitality is fully appreciated.

All above board

‘Well, sir, you have been fair-spoken to me, though I can see that I have you to thank that I have these bracelets upon my wrists. Still, I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above board.’

Jonathon Small, The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

The term ‘all above board’ is frequently used to describe fair play, and often appears in reference to business dealings or a legitimate venture. The word ‘board’ is possibly from the Anglo-Saxon bord, relating to the planks used to construct the sides of a ship. Therefore, all above board was the term used to describe all the parts of a ship above the deck, i.e. all that was visible of the ship to an observer.

Another possible origin of the term was from the practice of captains, when entering combat, using the fiendish ruse of keeping some of their men below decks, i.e. ‘below boards’, so that the enemy could not know the true strength of the crew.

Other sources indicate that the term might derive from gaming and card tables where players were encouraged to keep their hands in view above the table (board), thereby preventing some of the shadier practices that could occur under the table.

Awash

Nowadays, people often think that to be awash with something is a good thing. Headlines scream of people and places being awash with things: companies awash with cash, countries awash with oil and so on. The Independent on Sunday on 14 October 2007 proudly stated, ‘The emerging economies are awash with money’. This meaning could not be further from its origins.

If a sailor found his ship awash he would be very worried indeed, for to be ‘awash’ is to be covered in water. The term refers to the precise moment when a ship becomes so submerged that its decks become awash with water. Clearly in this state the ship and all those on her are in extreme danger, unless the vessel in question is a submarine, in which case to be awash is a common situation where the boat sits in the water perfectly safe with water washing across her decks. This word is not to be confused with the small Ethiopian town of the same name that sits on the River Awash.

Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey

There is something slightly immature about using a rugby match to air centuries-old grievances, and the Scots were at it again at Murrayfield as England ran out to be confronted by a group of torch-brandishing dervishes dressed in extra’s outfits from the set of Braveheart. Had it not been cold enough to reconfigure the nether regions of a brass monkey, they would probably have bent over – William Wallace style – to let the visitors know that a true Scot neither cares much for the English, nor wears much under his kilt.

Martin Johnson, Telegraph, 27 February 2006

This colloquial phrase, as employed rather inventively by England’s Rugby World Cup-winning captain in the quote above, is commonly used in the UK to describe extreme cold weather. According to much repeated orthodox naval tradition, a limited supply of four cannonballs was stored on ship next to each gun so as to be ready for immediate action. The balls were stacked up in pyramid fashion, a brass plate or tray (the monkey) incorporating three rings into which three balls were stacked, with the fourth ball sitting on the top. When, in extremely cold conditions, the brass contracted faster than the iron balls, the weight of the top ball would push the lower three off the plate sending them rolling across the deck. This was a very worrying prospect considering the amount of cannon carried by ships in the age of sail. For example at the Battle of Trafalgar, HMS Victory, a first rate ship of 100 guns, carried thirty ‘32 pounders’ just on her main gun deck.

Other sources point to the brass cannon, nicknamed a ‘monkey’, of seventeenth-century warships. Again, cold weather would make the brass contract faster than the iron cannonballs, thereby creating too much windage (the gap between the ball and the cannon chamber) for the cannon to shoot. In this interpretation the phrase is worded to freeze the balls of a brass monkey rather than off a brass monkey.

Another interpretation has Oriental entrepreneurs cashing in on the influx of western visitors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by casting and selling small brass monkey souvenirs of the Three Wise Monkeys at the Toshogu Shrine in Nikko, Japan. Some included a fourth monkey who used his hands to cover his modesty. Moreover, the phrase ‘freeze the tail off a brass monkey’ seems to have originated in the United States during the 1850s and supports the theory of substandard oriental manufacturing practices at that time leading to problems with brass monkey souvenirs in inclement conditions.

Shipshape and Bristol fashion

British journalists were typically excited in May 2005 when a story appeared that combined two of their favourite subjects; political correctness gone mad and local government. The story claimed that local councillors in Bristol had been told by ‘equality and diversity experts’ not to use the phrase ‘all ship shape and Bristol fashion’ due to its racist connotations regarding the selling of slaves. In fact, there was little evidence that the ‘experts’ had actually made the statement. This minor oversight did not prevent an article ‘Thought Police Go Overboard’ appearing in the Telegraph, while the Lord Mayor of Bristol, Peter Abraham, volleyed back, ‘I have used the term for 60 years and my family has and there is no way it can be regarded as politically incorrect.’

Well, despite the best attempts of the press to blow up the story, the Lord Mayor was correct. The term actually refers to the reputation for ships operating out of the West Country port to be well handled and kept neat and tidy: ‘shipshape’. Moreover, due to the fact that Bristol sits inland on the River Avon, which has a large tidal range, ships would become beached at every low tide. Not only did they have to be built strong enough to withstand this unusual buffeting, but all the goods, equipment and material on board had to be securely stowed to prevent objects moving around, hence the probable origin of the addition: ‘Bristol fashion’. These problems were solved with the construction of a floating harbour which opened in 1809.

In the classic 1964 film version of Mary Poppins, Bert the lovable chimney sweep (played by Dick Van Dyke), delivers the following line in one of the worst Cockney accents ever to appear on celluloid:

Now this imposin’ edifice what first meets the eye, is the ’ome of Admiral Boom, late