Salty language.

• Author: Lederer, Richard
• Position: WORDS IMAGES - Seafaring

IN THE POEM "Sea Fever" (1902), John Masefield wrote: "I must go down to the seas again / To the lonely sea and the sky / And all I ask is a tall ship / And a star to steer her by." Relatively few of us go down to the seas any more, and even fewer of us get to steer a tall ship. Having lost our intimacy with the sea and with sailing, we no longer taste the salty flavor of the metaphors that ebb and flow through our language.

Consider our use of the word "ship." We continue to "ship" goods, even when that shipping is done by truck, train, or plane. We compliment someone on "running a tight ship," even when that ship is an office or a classroom--and many things besides ships can be ship shape or sinking ships.

The lapping of the sea at our language is not a difficult concept to fathom. When we try to fathom an idea, we are making poetic use of an old word that originally meant "the span between two outstretched arms." Then the word came to mean "a unit of six feet used for measuring the depth of water." By poetic extension, to "fathom" now means "to get to the bottom of' something, and that something does not have to be the ocean.

To help you learn the ropes and get your bearings with seafaring metaphors, take a turn at the helm. The coast is clear for you to sound out the lay of the land by taking a different tack and playing a landmark game. Do not go overboard by barging ahead. If you libel all washed up, on the rocks, in over your head, and sinking fast in a wave of confusion, try to stay on an even keel. As your friendly anchorman, I will not rock the boat by lowering the boom on you.

Now that you get my drift, consider how the following idioms of sailing and the sea sprinkle salt on our tongues: shape up or ship out; to take the wind out of his sails; the tide turns; a sea of faces; down the hatch; hit the deck; to steer clear of; don't rock the boat; to harbor a grudge; and to give a wide berth to. For ancient mariners, "by and large" was a command that meant "to sail slightly off the wind," in contrast to "full and by." When we say by and large today, we mean "in general; for the most part" because we do not wish to sail directly into the topic. The expression "taken aback" probably conjures up in your mind an image of a person caught off-guard and staggering backwards, but the origin of the phrase is nautical, too: sailing by and large left an inexperienced helmsman in less danger of being taken aback, which meant "to catch the wind...