More nautical expressions for ye mariners all!

The beauty of English ...

it’s so stylish!

Bountiful its capacity

to embrace, enrich and celebrate

a linguistic heritage

that reaches out far abroad

to bring on board

words that mark our everyday talk

or dress our thoughts.

This time round the sea is it’s source ...

AHOY there! Look what the rolling waves washed up! A treasure chest filled with bountiful expressions of every kind – words and phrases meant to meet our varying language needs, lexemes that enhance our everyday speech.

Discretion lies, though, in using the right word at the right time as advocated by the eponymous 1985 book title, The Right Word At The Right Time.

I last recall having abandoned ship at the end of my seafaring tale on nautical notes (MOE, Dec 2). But having received a gracious aye from Captain Jane I am permitted not only to board the moored ship once more, but to turn boatswain for a bit and lord over my hoarded bounty of expressions the ocean turned in.

Also, this time, I am recruiting you as crew, especially since you simply sailed through the “sailor speak” test of expressions I set you on the said date.

The nautically sourced catch of idiomatic expressions below range from popular polywords and phrases to proverbial sayings that have been adopted or adapted for their shore-side meanings. While we can easily look up their etymologies online (if therein lies your interest), my focus here lies in their popular meaning and usage. Once we know what an expression means we can then proceed to use it correctly and so steadily shore up our command of the language. Do I hear an aye?

All you have to do is to study the following meanings (referenced from various sources such as CIDE, OALD, Oxford Learner’s Dictionary of English Idioms and online references), then cast your net into the deep (below) to fetch and bring on board their match in sense and spirit of the sea! I wish you fair weather, and I am certain of your good catch too.

All right, shake a leg ... No? How about a heave-ho!

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