Here’s Horatio Hornbeaver observing National Maritime Day. As it turns out, sailors are responsible for a sizable number of our words and phrases, including:
- A shot across the bow
- Batten down the hatches
- Between the devil and the deep blue sea
- Broad in the beam
- By and large
- Close quarters
- Cut and run
- Give a wide berth
- Hand over fist
- Hard and fast
- High and dry
- Know the ropes
- Loose cannon
- Shipshape
- Shake a leg
- Slush fund
- Taken aback
- Tell it to the marines
- The bitter end
- The cut of your jib
- Touch and go
- Above board
- Act of grace
- As the crow flies
- Lower the boom
- Bunker down
- No room to swing a cat
- Grog & groggy
- Clean bill of health
- Clean slate
- Dead Ahead
- Devil to pay
- Distinguishing mark
- Dressing down
- Fair winds and following seas
- Fend off
- First rate
- Fly by night
- Footloose
- Jury rig
- Kissing the gunner’s daughter
- Laid up
- Old salt
- Salty dog
- Over the barrel
- Pipe down
- Poop
- Scuttlebutt
- Three sheets to the wind
- Square meal
- Squared away
- Toe the line
- Touch and go
- Under the weather
- Swear like a sailor (Indeed, sailors are renown for their salty language, so there are a number of maritime vocabulary words that grade school teachers give a wide berth to and by and large, those nautical terms don’t show up on your typical 3rd grade spelling quiz, lest their parents are taken aback.)
