One possible and popular option is that when women were allowed to travel on the ships during passages, that the resulting babies would be conceived or born (or both) on the gun deck.Īnother, along the same lines, is that when a baby was born on board with unclear paternity, the child was apparently called ‘son of a gun’. It's a shame the Port Out Starboad Home theory doesn't bear scrutiny, because it’s a jolly good story, and in the absence of an interesting alternative, I am going to hold out hope for a ‘posh’ ticket to be discovered one day in an episode of Antiques Roadshow.Īnother highly contested entry into the CANOE hall of fame is ‘son of a gun’, which has several possible explanations and has been around since at least 1708. However, this is where the story starts to take on water, for no ticket has ever been found with the abbreviation POSH on it, nor a photo uncovered where the trunks had those chalk markings.Ĭonsidering that many photos have survived from this era, where people gathered on the quay upon departure posing for photos amidst piles of luggage trunks, the absence of photographic proof makes it highly unlikely that the expression POSH evolved from here.įurthermore, as Fiona MacPherson from the Oxford Dictionary blog rightly points out, this origin doesn’t account for the return journey from India, where the sunlight would have fallen on the other side of the ship, necessitating the abbreviation ‘soph’. POSH.Īpparently this abbreviation was written either on the passenger tickets, or scrawled in chalk on the guest luggage, to help the crew deliver the trunks to the correct cabins. In case you aren’t familiar with it, the most common explanation for the word ‘posh’ is that on the ships that passed between England and India in colonial days, the wealthier passengers would be allocated the cabins that received the least sunlight, in order to make their long journey more comfortable. This is a shame (not the insect part, although if you were partial to insects I can see how that too would be disheartening), because some of the best stories have been found to be large parts fiction. Many of the popular nautical origins of sayings have been, if not disproved, then at least discredited by etymologists (not entymologists, as insects have no place in this story). There is quite a fashion for attributing nautical origins to English phrases, a trend which many commentators put down to a mysterious organisation called CANOE: the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything.Ī word of warning: If you did look up CANOE, you’d be wasting your time as it is imaginary- unless of course you enjoy looking at pictures of people wearing fluorescent clothing and helmets sitting in hollowed out pieces of plastic and bashing into big rocks. But with the next ones, the waters get a bit murkier. The origins above are not generally contested. When the cat was let out of the bag, trouble was coming. Reminding us again how lucky we have it, this expression comes from the 9- tailed whip used to discipline sailors, which was apparently stored in a bag made of red material so as to hide the bloodstains. Being put on watch for sleeping in doesn’t seem so bad now, does it. This expression comes from the barbaric punishment of pushing a sailor on a rope over the side and dragging him under the boat from side to side. While we’re on the subject of cannons, ‘Loose Cannon’ came from the danger present when a cannon that was tied in place on deck came free of its lashings and careened around the deck, often crushing crew under its heavy wheels. Your stews are playing that song by Alicia Keys…again. Now that would clear the summertime anchorage in Cala di Volpe pretty quick. French word for door: porte.Īnd there you have it, the portholes we look through each day were originally built to fire a cannon through. He commissioned a Frenchman to solve the problem, who then built doors in the sides of the ship that the cannons could be fired through. King Henry V1 of England wanted bigger guns on his ships, and ordered cannons too big to be tied on deck in the traditional manner. The left side then became the side on which to tie up in port, so as to not damage the steerboard when docking.

Port and starboardīefore boats had rudders, they were steered by a board on the right side, which was known as a steerboard. Let’s begin, as any proper nautical education should, with our ports and our starboards. This, sadly, was not a rare example of me being clever, but rather shows just how many English words and phrases derive from our maritime past. While writing an article recently, I noticed that I’d used at least three expressions that have a clear nautical origin.

Sailing lingo funny