Nautical terms in everyday usage

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Giantvanman

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Knowingly or not, many people use nautical terms in everyday language.

One I have just learned about is very common, and as it happens, very common!

It seems that manure was shipped dry because it is lighter than when wet. However, when the manure got wet during the voyage, methane was produced and that caused explosions on ships……..open flames and oil lanterns in those days.

Having worked out the issue, the solution was to store the dry manure in the hold where it wouldn't get wet. To make sure they were loaded in the correct place, the bales were stamped with, wait for it, S.H.I.T. meaning Store High In Transit.

Or have I been had over?

EDIT: I read the above in good faith and thought it interesting but it appears to be a massive pile of bull. Queue the ridicule, please.
 
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"Backronyms
The backronym form "S.H.I.T." often figures into jokes, like Special High Intensity Training (a well-known joke used in job applications), Special Hot Interdiction Team (a mockery on SWAT), Super Hackers Invitational Tournament, and any college name that begins with an S-H (like Sam Houston Institute of Technology or South Harmon Institute of Technology in the 2006 film Accepted or Store High In Transit in the 2006 film Kenny). South Hudson Institute of Technology has sometimes been used to describe the United States Military Academy at West Point.[5] The Simpsons' Apu was a graduate student at Springfield Heights Institute of Technology."
 
I tuse to tell people it was a chemical formula SH1T like H2O
 
The one most commonly quoted as a shipping-related acronym is POSH ... but that's also made up!
 
The one most commonly quoted as a shipping-related acronym is POSH ... but that's also made up!

Quite possibly still a nautical term though

"A more factual defintion still derives from a shipping term which does not seem to be suggested on the previous source sites.

When boats leave a harbour the shipping lanes work to the rule that you must stay to the left hand side like on U.K roads. When leaving a harbour you therefore keep the Port lights of the shipping lane on the left and the Starboard on the right. However, when returning you keep the starboard lights on the left and the Port lights on the right. Hence Port Out Starboard Home... P.O.S.H"
 
Quite possibly still a nautical term though

"A more factual defintion still derives from a shipping term which does not seem to be suggested on the previous source sites.

When boats leave a harbour the shipping lanes work to the rule that you must stay to the left hand side like on U.K roads. When leaving a harbour you therefore keep the Port lights of the shipping lane on the left and the Starboard on the right. However, when returning you keep the starboard lights on the left and the Port lights on the right. Hence Port Out Starboard Home... P.O.S.H"

AFAIK the nautical 'rules of the road' specify that you keep to starboard (right) in a channel. In general vessels pass port side to port side.
 
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AFAIK the nautical 'rules of the road' specify that you keep to starboard (right) in a channel. In general vessels pass port side to port side.
I always understood that the term "Port Out Starboard Home", or "P.O.S.H." came from the days of Empire and referred to the voyage to/from India. Back in those days a suntan was indicative of someone "lower class" who worked outside, so the "upper classes" would do whatever they could to avoid getting a tan. "Port Out Starboard Home" therefore referred to the desirable shady side of the ship's deck.

Could be complete bollards, of course :p :D
 
I always understood that the term "Port Out Starboard Home", or "P.O.S.H." came from the days of Empire and referred to the voyage to/from India. Back in those days a suntan was indicative of someone "lower class" who worked outside, so the "upper classes" would do whatever they could to avoid getting a tan. "Port Out Starboard Home" therefore referred to the desirable shady side of the ship's deck.

Could be complete bollards, of course :p :D

That's as I knew it as well.

The story, not the bollards bit.
 
I always understood that the term "Port Out Starboard Home", or "P.O.S.H." came from the days of Empire and referred to the voyage to/from India. Back in those days a suntan was indicative of someone "lower class" who worked outside, so the "upper classes" would do whatever they could to avoid getting a tan. "Port Out Starboard Home" therefore referred to the desirable shady side of the ship's deck.

Could be complete bollards, of course :p :D

That's the generally accepted/quoted definition but there is no evidence to support it. I think it only emerged around the 1960's
 
Apparently we are all wrong, Posh is Dosh.

Finally there's what's known about the word's history. As mentioned earlier, posh has a murky beginning. The word, as we now understand it to mean "luxurious" (it's carried a number of meanings during its time in the English language), was first sighted in print in 1914. However, if we look back at a related meaning, that of "a dandy," it was sighted in 1890, with that entry drawn from a dictionary of slang, from which we can glean that the word had been around for a bit even before that.

As to where posh (in the "dandy" sense) came from, in 1830 the word was sighted in print as a term for money ("He had not got the posh yet"). A reasonable assumption is that, over time, a slang term for "money" came to mean "someone who has a fair bit of money," which then jumped to mean "something that costs a lot of money" or "something that only the highest socially can get their hands on."

As to how posh came to mean "money," a term from the Romany language spoken by the gypsies in 17th century England brought it into play: posh-houri, meaning "half-pence." The posh component of that compound word stuck around, attracting the slang meaning of money.

If all that was too complicated to follow, think of it this way: posh came from the gypsies of 17th century England, and you'd have to search long and hard to find a group of folks less likely to have set foot on a steamship, let alone to be housed in the best accommodations onboard.
Read more at snopes.com: Etymology of Posh
 
I always understood that the term "Port Out Starboard Home", or "P.O.S.H." came from the days of Empire and referred to the voyage to/from India. Back in those days a suntan was indicative of someone "lower class" who worked outside, so the "upper classes" would do whatever they could to avoid getting a tan. "Port Out Starboard Home" therefore referred to the desirable shady side of the ship's deck.

Could be complete bollards, of course :p :D

Yup I was told that years ago, but it is a load of bollards!

snopes.com: Etymology of Posh

Oops same link as DM!
 
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"Freeze the balls off a brass monkey" is a nautical term too.

A brass monkey was a brass tray used for stacking cannon balls on. When it got very cold the brass would contract more than the balls and the balls would fall off.
 
Fornication Under Consent of the King


is what i heard
 

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