Does "yacht" sound pretentious?

prv said:
Talking about motive power is a red herring - as I said above, there's no objection to "sailing boat".

The point is simple - "sailboat" is a word in US English, in my opinion it is not a word in British English.

Obviously English is an infamously flexible and acquisitive language, so if you happen to think that "sailboat" has crossed the pond then that's fine. I'm not telling you not to use it; I don't know why you're so keen to tell me that I should.

Pete
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Jacht is Dutch not yankie
 
prv said:
Talking about motive power is a red herring - as I said above, there's no objection to "sailing boat".

The point is simple - "sailboat" is a word in US English, in my opinion it is not a word in British English.

Obviously English is an infamously flexible and acquisitive language, so if you happen to think that "sailboat" has crossed the pond then that's fine. I'm not telling you not to use it; I don't know why you're so keen to tell me that I should.

Pete
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Ah. miss-comprehension. I am not telling you what you should call your boat. I am saying you are wrong to say that sailing boat is more correct than sailboat.
 
Daydream believer said:
Our club (SSC) is a sailing club.
If anyone wants to wind up some of the older members they call it a" yacht" club & then the fun starts
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In the 60s we sailed/raced an Enterprise on Ullswater. To do so we joined the UYC - Ullswater Yacht Club. IIRC the greatest proportion, if not all of the water-craft were sailing dinghies (not saildinghies; sorry couldn't resist that one. Apologies!). Certainly pretentious to call it a YACHT CLUB.
 
One has read that that a boat is not properly called a yacht unless there are ice making facilities aboard you know
 
I think it's an age thing.

Old people, or those who have a rather old fashioned outlook, seem to usually refer to sail boats as yachts. And pretentious people of all ages.

Younger people, and the open minded, in my limited experience tend to use the term boat, especially at first.

We refer to our 34' vessel, with engine, mast and sails, as a boat or a motor sailer. Being old, yacht occasionally slips out but I'd rather it didn't.
 
Coaster said:
I think it's an age thing.

Old people, or those who have a rather old fashioned outlook, seem to usually refer to sail boats as yachts. And pretentious people of all ages.

Younger people, and the open minded, in my limited experience tend to use the term boat, especially at first.

We refer to our 34' vessel, with engine, mast and sails, as a boat or a motor sailer. Being old, yacht occasionally slips out but I'd rather it didn't.
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You therefore make me feel young! Thank you, Coaster:encouragement:
 
Robert Wilson said:
When does a boat become a yacht; be it sail or power? Anyone else feel a tad uncomfortable when referring to their craft as a yacht?
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I crew on a 64ft sailing boat sometimes but i never call it a yachts. It's a boat as it can be carried onboard a megayacht
 
Our club is a 'yacht club' but is mainly chaps who would be happy to mess about with an old wooden crate so long as it's got a sail. Some nice bigger sailing yachts but even small trailer sailers often get called yachts for convenience. To dispel any ideas of grandeur, I tell friends that I sail a small 20ft boat, a dinghy with a lid, a glassfibre tent where you can't stand up and a glorified bucket constitutes the en-suite facilities. They soon stop asking to go out for a cruise.

Terminology's got to be flexible depending on the other person in the conversation. Although something could just be a s/m/l/xl 'boat', if the other party knows an Azimut from a Zapcat it may be better descibed as, say, a motorboat, speedboat, motor cruiser, RIB, motoryacht, superyacht, megayacht, dinghy, dory, dayboat, skiff, launch, fishing boat, trawler, dredger, barge, narrowboat, butty, widebeam, sailboat, sailing boat, sailing yacht, keelboat, sloop, ketch, yawl, catamaran, trimaran etc etc

By the time you are discussing a 35ft fin keel high aspect masthead sloop and a 21ft gaff rigged bilge keeler, both parties should already have a fair idea of what the boats actually look like. My personal rule of thumb for 'yacht' is a private pleasure craft capable of crossing big seas, just as easily an old Folkboat as the St Tropez fleet.
 
mikhalis said:
Our club is a 'yacht club' but is mainly chaps who would be happy to mess about with an old wooden crate so long as it's got a sail. Some nice bigger sailing yachts but even small trailer sailers often get called yachts for convenience. To dispel any ideas of grandeur, I tell friends that I sail a small 20ft boat, a dinghy with a lid, a glassfibre tent where you can't stand up and a glorified bucket constitutes the en-suite facilities. They soon stop asking to go out for a cruise.

Terminology's got to be flexible depending on the other person in the conversation. Although something could just be a s/m/l/xl 'boat', if the other party knows an Azimut from a Zapcat it may be better descibed as, say, a motorboat, speedboat, motor cruiser, RIB, motoryacht, superyacht, megayacht, dinghy, dory, dayboat, skiff, launch, fishing boat, trawler, dredger, barge, narrowboat, butty, widebeam, sailboat, sailing boat, sailing yacht, keelboat, sloop, ketch, yawl, catamaran, trimaran etc etc

By the time you are discussing a 35ft fin keel high aspect masthead sloop and a 21ft gaff rigged bilge keeler, both parties should already have a fair idea of what the boats actually look like. My personal rule of thumb for 'yacht' is a private pleasure craft capable of crossing big seas, just as easily an old Folkboat as the St Tropez fleet.
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Pant, pant, pant! Phew, that crammed a lot in to a few lines:encouragement:

By the way, I presume etc etc would include dug-out, log, plank, praam, pram (with fender-floats), oildrum, raft, deck-chair (as in Titanic).
Now I'm just been silly.

Thanks for your balanced and informative view.
 
Reading the whole thread there is a further observation I can make. A yacht must have a single hull as a catamran or trimaran would never be called a yacht. I am old school and sometimes say I have a yacht, other times I have a boat. Generally most people then ask about its size, type, etc. Really I should call it a yacht all the time, but cannot be bothered.
 
Gotten is the past participle of the verb "to get," as used by Shakespeare and other distinguished British writers. It wasn't invented by Americans. It was just remembered by them, long after we'd forgotten it and ceased to use it, except, perhaps in such phrases as "ill-gotten gains."

As for sailboat, I'm astonished that anyone could be so pretentious as to avoid using the word because it originated in America. I've never understood the British antagonism toward the United States. I grew up in the middle of the blitz, was bombed out twice, and I'm very grateful that America came to our aid in the most desperate of our times. Never mind "gotten." If we hadn't gotten help from America, we'd all be speaking German by now.

http://www.scunthorpetelegraph.co.uk/Gotten-dates-Middle-English/story-11178748-detail/story.html
 
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