Nautical Terminology

Sandyman said:
If you must enter our environment kindly do yourself the credit & us the honour of learning & using our nautical terminology. If you cant be bothered then may I suggest you take up model yacht racing & visit your local boating pond.
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That's taken rather a leap from debating the value or otherwise of nautical terms to demanding that other people behave as you do. Whatever the subject, my response to such conceit would be graphic and pithy. Please don't try it to my face.
 
Sandyman said:
If you must enter our environment kindly do yourself the credit & us the honour of learning & using our nautical terminology. If you cant be bothered then may I suggest you take up model yacht racing & visit your local boating pond.
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Blimey. I seem to have lit your blue touchpaper. I will most certainly try to stay out of "your" environment but I will continue to enjoy sailing and the sea, which is thankfully an environment that belongs to no-one.

Disregarding the flamers, there seems to be a diversity of opinion, some for, some against, with port and starboard being the terms that most people feel affection for. I will probably continue to use nearly all the nautical terms that we have discussed while continuing to feel that some of them are anachronistic. Agreed, precision is sometimes important and surely in all walks of life we vary our terminology to achieve the degree of precision demanded by the circumstances.
 
As with language sailing terminology naturally evolves over time, with terms like brig, barquentine and fo'c'sle being gradually replaced by new ones such as masthead, fractional and sail-locker. Somewhere on that spectrum are terms like berthing, belaying and helm-a-lee.

More surprising casualties include the 32 point compass: how many of us would immediately know where to look if a helm informed us that a cardinal mark was "three points abaft the starboard beam"? And how many of us would instantly steer 190 degrees if instructed to sail "South-by-West".

And there's the rub; there's no harm in people using ye olde terminology if they enjoy it, but one does at least need to be aware of the more commonly used terms. That said quaint expressions like "the helm was three sheets to the wind" cannot be bettered by the modern expletive laden equivalents!
 
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Nautical terminology exists partly as a specialist jargon to protect the real seamen from landsmen, but more importantly as an effective way of avoiding confusion when the chips are down. You can of course use any terminology on your boat but if you want to be clearly understood by all when it really matters. After all your life may depend on being clearly understood. To be provocative would suggest that the person who does not use the correct terminology will never be more than a landsman who goes to sea
 
maxi77 said:
Nautical terminology exists partly as a specialist jargon to protect the real seamen from landsmen, but more importantly as an effective way of avoiding confusion when the chips are down.
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Agreed, although I think there is a difference between jargon, which may be a sort of obscure "tribal" code, and the specialist language of any specialist enterprise to describe things, actions and situations that only occur in that setting. And it is the common language of people on the water. If you want to be sure that you are understood it's better to use the succinct common language than make up your own as you go along.

Rather similar situation to the colregs debate. Observe the regs and make your intentions predictable or set them aside and hope the other crew will play ball.
 
maxi77 said:
Nautical terminology exists partly as a specialist jargon to protect the real seamen from landsmen, but more importantly as an effective way of avoiding confusion when the chips are down. You can of course use any terminology on your boat but if you want to be clearly understood by all when it really matters. ...
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... then you may well have to swallow your pride and say to someone less experienced "let out that red rope by your right hand bit" instead of "surge the port sheet" or whatever the nautical term happens to be. As soon as jargon starts impeding communication, it is failing in its purpose. Michael Green put it perfectly:

Coarse Sailor: One who in times of crisis forgets all nautical language and shouts "For God's sake turn left".
 
Serin said:
Agreed, although I think there is a difference between jargon, which may be a sort of obscure "tribal" code, and the specialist language of any specialist enterprise to describe things, actions and situations that only occur in that setting. And it is the common language of people on the water. If you want to be sure that you are understood it's better to use the succinct common language than make up your own as you go along.
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That's all very well as far as it goes. But the fact is there is no such "succinct common language" in leisure boating. A Frenchman or a German isn't likely to be referring to 'sheets' and "galley". True, the majority of small boats will have crew speaking a common language, but I'd be interested in the views of sailors for whom English isn't the mother tongue.

Roberto, are you reading? ;)
 
JumbleDuck said:
... then you may well have to swallow your pride and say to someone less experienced "let out that red rope by your right hand bit" instead of "surge the port sheet" or whatever the nautical term happens to be. As soon as jargon starts impeding communication, it is failing in its purpose.
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Surely that goes without saying? Having worked professionally in my earlier days teaching sailing and working on big yachts I have sailed with many novices and still do. And I learned to explain carefully and help them gradually absorb the common lingo, which the vast majority were very keen to do. Anyone who tells someone to do something in words they can't possibly understand is a fool. Sadly there are some of those around.
 
macd said:
That's all very well as far as it goes. But the fact is there is no such "succinct common language" in leisure boating. A Frenchman or a German isn't likely to be referring to 'sheets' and "galley". True, the majority of small boats will have crew speaking a common language, but I'd be interested in the views of sailors for whom English isn't the mother tongue.

Roberto, are you reading? ;)
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Oh dear.... I think the point you make pretty much goes without saying, much like Jumbleduck's. Common sense, surely?
 
macd said:
Oh, dear, yourself. The point I was making was that maybe speakers of other languages deal with this in different ways. Whether they do or not, I'd be interested in any parallels. It's called curiosity.
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Exactly. Different nationalities having different languages have their own nautical terminology, which serves them in the same way that English terminology serves most English speakers, with some variations in different parts of the English speaking world, bearing in mind that English is an international language with a range of variants.

I have observed this many times, having sailed with people of many different nationalities and have been glad, when sailing, for example, with crews from the Centre Nautique de Glenans, to learn some of these terms as used in the French language.

Is that clear enough?
 
Serin said:
Surely that goes without saying? Having worked professionally in my earlier days teaching sailing and working on big yachts I have sailed with many novices and still do. And I learned to explain carefully and help them gradually absorb the common lingo, which the vast majority were very keen to do. Anyone who tells someone to do something in words they can't possibly understand is a fool. Sadly there are some of those around.
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Unfortunately there are a quite a few people around who aren't as sensible as you, and who think that shouted Nautical is as easily understood by the newcomer as shouted English traditionally is to foreigners. Did you see the thread here a while back about someone who was shouting mad at a helpful passer by who hadn't understood screamed demands that he "dip the rope" when putting a rope on a cleat. Of course in that case inventing the nautical jargon from scratch didn't help, but I fear that man of us have heard someone shouting "Starboard. No, STARBOARD YOU CRETIN" at a crew for whom "Fender on your right, please" would have worked much better.
 
Making oneself understood is one thing, but one of the charms of using traditional terms is the connection it makes to our nautical predecessors. I'm not much given to saying Avast There, or Ahoy There Me Hearties, but just saying astern or abeam takes me back to the time of Nelson and reminds me of the traditions we are following.
 
JumbleDuck said:
I fear that many of us have heard someone shouting "Starboard. No, STARBOARD YOU CRETIN" at a crew for whom "Fender on your right, please" would have worked much better.
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Yes - although it might be a case of forgetting that a word counts as "nautical", rather than a bloody-minded refusal to speak in plain English.

Sharing out chores on a sail-training ship once, I asked if there were any volunteers to clean all the heads. One guy cheerfully stepped forwards, but the conversation got increasingly confused as I handed out the implements and explained what was expected. My fault of course - it turned out I'd forgotten that "heads" wasn't everyday English, and he'd thought he was volunteering for a cushy job giving the shower-heads a quick polish :)

Pete
 
Imagine the fun you could have showing someone how to fly a jumbo jet and calling everything by a different name to the one its got.

Oh, you could also call all your friends 'Dave' coz its easier.

:)
 
capnsensible said:
Imagine the fun you could have showing someone how to fly a jumbo jet and calling everything by a different name to the one its got.
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I'm fairly sure that when ATC are talking down some poor terrified sod sitting the the cockpit of an aircraft beside the unconscious pilot then do not always use all the full technical language.
 
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