Shiver me timbers: Popular boating sayings and their origins 13 Articles

by Janette Peel

Many boating sayings are hundreds of years old, with some tracing their origin to dates well before the twelfth century. While there are thousands of these phrases in the nautical lexicon let's batten down the hatches an...read more

by Trudi Buck

When Grandma use to say there'd be "The devil to pay" if Grandpa, who grandma called "A son of a gun", came home late, I was always under the impression she was referring to some sort of trouble he'd be in. Likewise, I nev...read more

by Chris Emmerson

There are literally thousands of sayings directly attributed to the sea, most are still in common use in the English language. Sometimes it seems you can not put a sentence together without a reference to boating, here ...read more

by Carol Megivern

Are you "Three Sheets to the Wind" or have you gone the "Whole Nine Yards?" Oh dear have you "Froze the Balls off the Brass Monkey" and have you been "Minding your P's and Q's?" And by all means "Don't Let the Cat out of t...read more

by Jan Culbertson

So, you've finally bought that boat you've always promised yourself, and are now "on course" to becoming an old salt, or at least an accomplished weekend sailor. You know the difference between the bow and stern, and you k...read more

by Melissa Kay Bishop

Long ago in a world filled with explorers sailing to new lands, bringing exotic goods to new continents, and fearing attacks from pirates or sea monsters, a whole boating culture evolved. Like most cultures, it developed ...read more

by Sam Todd

Time for a riddle; what do Robert Louis Stevenson, The Muppets and British rock group Radiohead have in common with boats? The answer? All have some association with our most popular maritime phrases, the majority dati...read more

by Sparx

The boating world is full of terms and phrases you won't hear anywhere else. Shiver me timbers, avast matey, thar she blows. Some terms have made their way into common usage, other have and always will be terms reminiscent...read more

by Laura Milanovich

So, you have a boat, and you set your sheets and head for open water.... Not so fast, firstly, let's get some of the lingo down. As much as the old Pirates may have be rapscallions and unsavory characters, their lingo, an...read more

by Ian Pauley

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 t...read more

by Craig MacKellar

Many of you will be familiar with some of the terms and expressions derived from those of the boating fraternity. Some of these such as "The full nine yards", "Three sheets to the wind" and "Between the devil and the deep ...read more

by Anne Penny

SHAKE A LEG, CLEAR THE DECKS, WEIGH THE ANCHOR! Double-Dutch or boat-speak? Boating types have a language all their own, but with a little application, landlubbers can master it, too! To start you off, we'll go through...read more

by Chris Loud

Think of all the sayings you use that with a gun to your head you could not explain where they came from. Sayings like, "As the crow flies", "barge in", "bear down", "bitter end", and that's just at the beginning of the al...read more