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Anybody know the origins of these sayings?
Topic Started: Nov 9 2009, 11:23 AM (2,610 Views)
Picture Fixer
Peasant
james
Nov 18 2009, 11:18 PM
"3 sheets in the wind"(Sheets sails)nautical term local to Fleetwood trawlermen. Means drunk or not all there

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 :DD


Edited by Picture Fixer, Nov 19 2009, 02:49 AM.
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Jon
Peasant
Picture Fixer
Nov 19 2009, 02:48 AM
james
Nov 18 2009, 11:18 PM
"3 sheets in the wind"(Sheets sails)nautical term local to Fleetwood trawlermen. Means drunk or not all there

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 :DD


The version you give, incidentally, is comparatively recent, since the older one is three sheets to the wind. Our first written example comes from that recorder of low life, Pierce Egan, in his Real life in London of 1821. But it must surely be much older.
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james
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Knight
Picture Fixer
Nov 19 2009, 02:48 AM
james
Nov 18 2009, 11:18 PM
"3 sheets in the wind"(Sheets sails)nautical term local to Fleetwood trawlermen. Means drunk or not all there

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 :DD


Your a Deep sea trawlerman then?
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Jon
Peasant
I find these sayings very interesting trying to find out where they began and what they actually refer to is amazingly complex. Here’s one I am sure you have heard of but where do you think it began?


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Jon
Peasant
Ooops forgot to post the saying "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"
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Thorntonone
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something to do with pawn brokers
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Picture Fixer
Peasant
Hi all

The phrase is actually first recorded as 'freeze the tail off a brass monkey
.

:-)
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Jon
Peasant
Your right PF but where does it come from and what does it refer to?
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Thorntonone
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ok my serious answer.

Origin

Some references say that the brass triangles that supported stacks of iron cannon-balls on sailing ships were called monkeys and that in cold weather the metal contracted, causing the balls to fall off. The derivation of this phrase is difficult enough to determine without such tosh, so let's get that oft-repeated story out of the way first:

Cartoons of pirate ships always come complete with the usual icons - parrots, peg legs and pyramids of cannon-balls. That's artistic license rather than historical fact. The Royal Navy records that, on their ships at least, cannon-balls were stored in planks with circular holes cut into them - not stacked in pyramids. These planks were known as 'shot garlands', not monkeys, and they date back to at least 1769, when they were first referred to in print.

On dry land, the obvious way to store cannon-balls seems to be by stacking them. On board ship it's a different matter. A little geometry shows that a pyramid of balls will topple over if the base is tilted by more than 30 degrees. This tilting, not to mention any sudden jolting, would have been commonplace on sailing ships. It just isn't plausible that cannon-balls were stacked this way.

For those wanting a bit more detail, here's the science bit. The coefficient of expansion of brass is 0.000019; that of iron is 0.000012. If the base of the stack were one metre long, the drop in temperature needed to make the 'monkey' shrink relative to the balls by just one millimetre, would be around 100 degrees Celsius. Such a small shrinkage wouldn't have had the slightest effect. In any case, in weather like that, the sailors would probably have better things to think about than coining new phrases.
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james
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Knight
Thorntonone
Nov 20 2009, 10:40 PM
ok my serious answer.

Origin

Some references say that the brass triangles that supported stacks of iron cannon-balls on sailing ships were called monkeys and that in cold weather the metal contracted, causing the balls to fall off. The derivation of this phrase is difficult enough to determine without such tosh, so let's get that oft-repeated story out of the way first:

Cartoons of pirate ships always come complete with the usual icons - parrots, peg legs and pyramids of cannon-balls. That's artistic license rather than historical fact. The Royal Navy records that, on their ships at least, cannon-balls were stored in planks with circular holes cut into them - not stacked in pyramids. These planks were known as 'shot garlands', not monkeys, and they date back to at least 1769, when they were first referred to in print.

On dry land, the obvious way to store cannon-balls seems to be by stacking them. On board ship it's a different matter. A little geometry shows that a pyramid of balls will topple over if the base is tilted by more than 30 degrees. This tilting, not to mention any sudden jolting, would have been commonplace on sailing ships. It just isn't plausible that cannon-balls were stacked this way.

For those wanting a bit more detail, here's the science bit. The coefficient of expansion of brass is 0.000019; that of iron is 0.000012. If the base of the stack were one metre long, the drop in temperature needed to make the 'monkey' shrink relative to the balls by just one millimetre, would be around 100 degrees Celsius. Such a small shrinkage wouldn't have had the slightest effect. In any case, in weather like that, the sailors would probably have better things to think about than coining new phrases.
The Peasantry are getting out of hand with all this book Learning.In Nelsons day they would have been "Keel Hauled.
Would add that the young lads who carried gunpowder then water to cool the cannon were known as "powder Monkeys,"
Edited by james, Nov 20 2009, 11:07 PM.
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