(no subject)
Jan. 26th, 2003 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockBe wary, young sailor,
Of wind and high water.
The sea has a secret,
The sea has a daughter.
She'll swim along starboard,*
And capture your heart.
With a flip of her tail-fin,
Underwater, depart.
~Unknown.
---
**for those real landlubbers, 'starboard' is right (meaning 'port' is left)
It's hard for me to imagine anyone not knowing this, but then I take a lot of more obscure boat-speak for granted, so I figured I'd add this footnote just in case.
Random side note: did you know the verb to "deck" someone comes from sailors, who would punch someone hard-- and because sailors back in those days (and still some now) had massive arm muscles, that meant knocking them down on the deck of the ship with one swing. A girl in my class last year gave it as an example of figurative language, and my English teacher said it was slang, not f.l. Feh. What would she know about it anyway? yeah, teacher, but still. More than half of common slang IS figurative language. Just not pretty or eloquent kind of f.l.
Of wind and high water.
The sea has a secret,
The sea has a daughter.
She'll swim along starboard,*
And capture your heart.
With a flip of her tail-fin,
Underwater, depart.
~Unknown.
---
**for those real landlubbers, 'starboard' is right (meaning 'port' is left)
It's hard for me to imagine anyone not knowing this, but then I take a lot of more obscure boat-speak for granted, so I figured I'd add this footnote just in case.
Random side note: did you know the verb to "deck" someone comes from sailors, who would punch someone hard-- and because sailors back in those days (and still some now) had massive arm muscles, that meant knocking them down on the deck of the ship with one swing. A girl in my class last year gave it as an example of figurative language, and my English teacher said it was slang, not f.l. Feh. What would she know about it anyway? yeah, teacher, but still. More than half of common slang IS figurative language. Just not pretty or eloquent kind of f.l.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re:
Date: 2003-01-27 11:10 am (UTC)Huh. That was a table-rule I never learned. Probably a good way to remember it.
Apparently, in (british) English, because of the strong maritime history, sailing and the sea has provided more meatphors, similes, slang and expressions than any other source bar Shakespeare!
That's interesting. I think that is stronger in Britian than in American English, because while there's certianly a lot, there's not that much. You know, I was once told in an English writing/lit class that almost all allusions in literature can be traced to the Bible, Shakespeare, or classical mythology.
Re:
Date: 2003-01-27 12:02 pm (UTC)"You know, I was once told in an English writing/lit class that almost all allusions in literature can be traced to the Bible, Shakespeare, or classical mythology.
"
Yeah, that sounds right. Certainly think that having a good knowledge of classical mythology has helped me in English lit/lang, as has knowing bible.
I wonder if maybe the source that I heard my "sailing providied.." theory (its one of those things I read somewhere but can't source hence the term "apparently" when I quote it) qualified it in someway?