by Ian Pauley

Created on: November 10, 2007

Shiver me timbers you son of a gun stop swinging the lead and get everything above board for a clean bill of health!
One sentence, comprising of five maritime phrases that we've all heard them before but do we know what they mean and where they come from?
Let's start with shiver me timbers'. It was famously used by Long John Silver and used as a pirating cliche but he was referring to the shivers or slivers of wood that would break off ships timbers after being struck by a cannonball.

For centuries a favored pastime of sailors when tying up in dock was to invite the local prostitutes on board to relieve the tensions of an arduous crossing. The gun deck was the favored place for conducting such business and any boy conceived between two cannon was known as a son of a gun. I wonder what girls born in these circumstances were called.
The leadsman had the task of dropping a lead-weighted, knotted line in the water and shout out the depth. If he didn't feel like doing his job properly he would just swing the lead and call out any number he felt like.
Everything above board now refers to all that is right and proper but in days gone by all that was declared to the customs officials when arriving in port was above board, openly available for inspection. This would have been whatever attracted less duty so one assumes that all the good stuff, rum, tobacco etc. was kept below board.
Remote island communities could be decimated by epidemics so it was important to know that any visiting ship wasn't carrying a crew harboring a contagious disease. So, when a ship left a port, it would take with it a bill of health reporting the medical condition of the port from where she had sailed. If you do fall ill you are under the weather, which has its origins on the high seas. This is a rather polite way of saying that someone is suffering from seasickness in rough seas and heaving their guts up.
We've all been in the doldrums from time to time, feeling listless and a little depressed, just like the nautical equivalent where the winds sometimes don't blow for weeks at a time.
Are you a posh person? The British colonialists when sailing to and from India would pay extra for cabins on the port side of the ship when sailing out and on the starboard side on the way back, thus avoiding the worst of the sun. Hence was born the acronym from, Port Out, Starboard Home.
Ever asked for a raise and been told to go whistle for it? Now this phrase has come to mean that the result of a request is unlikely to be agreed to, but sailors stuck in the doldrums would whistle as it was believed that whistling would encourage a breeze whilst other sailors thought that whistling would bring a storm either way it was most unlikely that anything was going to happen, which is where we are today.
Time now for me to clear the decks, check that everything is ship shape before I weigh the anchor. Then after I've shown you the ropes I'll open a bottle of grog and get three sheets to the wind; avast me hearties! Whatever that means

word count 557

credits to
www.joe-ks.com
www.wikipedia.com
www.goenglish.com
ww w.theanswerbank.co.uk

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