More Phrases from the Sea

KNOW THE ROPES

Meaning

To understand how to do something. To be acquainted with all the methods required.

Origin

There is some doubt about the origin of this phrase. It may well have a nautical origin. Sailors had to learn which rope raised which sail and also had to learn a myriad of knots. There is also a suggestion that it comes from the world of the theatre, where ropes are used to raise scenery etc.

The first citation comes in Richard H. Dana Jr’s Two years before the mast, 1840:

“The captain, who had been on the coast before and ‘knew the ropes,’ took the steering oar”

That clearly has a seafaring connection, although it appears to be using the figurative meaning of the phrase, i.e. ‘the captain was knowledgeable’, but without any specific allusion to ropes.

There are also early citations that come from the theatre. J. Timon, in Opera Goer, 1850 includes this:

“The belle of two weeks standing, who has ‘learned the ropes’.”

The nautical derivation seems more attractive and convincing, but the jury has to remain out on this one.

from: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/221800.html

Memorial Day

Memorial Day had its origin at the end of the Civil War when on May 30^th 1868 General John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, honored the soldiers and sailors who had given their lives in the horrific civil conflict. He chose to honor the war dead of not only the victors but both the Union and the Confederate soldiers who were buried at Arlington, by decorating their graves with flowers. This was known as Decoration Day then some time after World War I this became known as Memorial Day, a day set aside to memorialize and pay tribute to all those who gave their lives in military service to the country. It is celebrated on the last Monday in May each year and is a United States Federal holiday.

Curious Phrases

THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND

Meaning

Very drunk.

Origin

Our colleagues at CANOE, the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything, have been hard at work and, to their great pleasure, they can add this phrase to their list. ‘Three sheets to the wind’ is indeed a seafaring expression.

To understand this phrase we need to enter the arcane world of nautical terminology. Sailors’ language is, unsurprisingly, all at sea and many supposed derivations have to go by the board. Don’t be taken aback to hear that sheets aren’t sails, as landlubbers might expect, but ropes (or occasionally, chains). These are fixed to the lower corners of sails, to hold them in place. If three sheets are loose and blowing about in the wind then the sails will flap and the boat will lurch about like a drunken sailor.

The phrase is these days more often given as ‘three sheets to the wind’, rather than the original ‘three sheets in the wind’. The earliest printed citation that I can find is in Pierce Egan’s Real Life in London, 1821:

“Old Wax and Bristles is about three sheets in the wind.”

Sailors at that time had a sliding scale of drunkenness; three sheets was the falling over stage; tipsy was just ‘one sheet in the wind’, or ‘a sheet in the wind’s eye’. An example appears in the novel The Fisher’s Daughter, by Catherine Ward, 1824:

“Wolf replenished his glass at the request of Mr. Blust, who, instead of being one sheet in the wind, was likely to get to three before he took his departure.”

Robert Louis Stevenson was as instrumental in inventing the imagery of ‘yo ho ho and a bottle of rum’ piracy as his countryman and contemporary Sir Walter Scott was in inventing the tartan and shortbread ‘Bonnie Scotland’. Stevenson used the ‘tipsy’ version of the phrase in Treasure Island, 1883 - the book that gave us ‘X marks the spot’, ’shiver me timbers’ and the archetypal one-legged, parrot-carrying pirate, Long John Silver. He gave Silver the line:

“Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind’s eye. But I’ll tell you I was sober; “

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/three-sheets-to-the-wind.html