Nautical terms part one

 

Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay

As with my earlier posts on terms that come from the world of printing, such is the case with nautical terms that entered the language in some form. I gained some inspiration for this post from an essay by Hester Blum about her brief voyage on a 19th-century whaling ship.

"Think of all the idioms for competency that come from seafaring: knowing the ropes, crackerjack, all told, first rate, flying colors. There are plenty of nautical expressions for incompetency, too: deadwood, over a barrel, run afoul, scraping the bottom of the barrel. My expertise in the language and literature of sailing does not necessarily translate to manual or experiential fluency, nor did I expect it to."

Some of these terms have fallen out of fashion. As a child, I would hear adults tell us kids to "pipe down" meaning to get quiet. Aboard a ship, the boatswain's pipe, or whistle, is used to summon a crew, relay orders and dismiss them. To dismiss a crew, the boatswain piped and the command "pipe down" is given. After dismissal, things were quiet and the command became associated with quieting down or making less noise.

Boatswain's whistle, pipe, or bosun's pipe

The phrase “know the ropes” comes from sailing where ropes, or lines, are important to navigating and steering the ship. One who knows the ropes has experience in sailing.

"Crackerjack" isn't just a snack food that appeared in the 1890s. In the late 19th-century crack and jack were merged into a new word. Cracker is an elongation of crack which is an adjective meaning "expert" or "superior" that dates from the 18th century, as in "He is a crack shot with a rifle." Even earlier, "crack" was a noun meaning "something superior" and a verb meaning "to boast." 

"Jack" has been used for "man" since the mid-1500s. We find it in the expression "jack-of-all-trades" and in nautical terms as "Jack Tar" to mean a sailor. (The "tar" comes from the coating on ropes.) Crackerjack entered English as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," and then was used as an adjective. 

"All told" is an idiom we don't hear very much these days. It means with everything or everyone taken into account. "All told there will be 75 people attending." It was once used on board ships to indicate all were present.

"First-rate" has its origin in the rating "A1" which was used to mean "having the highest qualifications" in reference to commercial ships. Lloyd's of London used this rating system. Shipping was very important in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Lloyd's rating system became known beyond shipping to mean "of the finest quality" or "first-rate."

The term "flying colors," as in "she passed the test with flying colors" and "showing your true colors" to mean to reveal one's character (usually used in a negative way) both come from a sailing practice. At one time, ships hoisted their national flags ("fly their colors") before commencing battle, BUT some ships would carry flags from many countries and hoist "false flags" to confuse or mislead their enemies rather than show their "true colors."

Toto

Toto (stylized as TOTO) was formed in 1977 in Los Angeles.  Toto is known for a musical style that combines elements of pop, rock, soul, funk, progressive rock, hard rock, R&B, blues and jazz. Having released 14 studio albums and sold over 40 million records worldwide. The group has received several Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2009. 

Toto by W. W. Denslow
from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

In the early 1980s, band members told the press that the band was named after the dog in The Wizard of Oz. The other origin story is that Jeff Porcaro had written TOTO on one of their demos just to be a marker on the tapes. Bassist David Hungate saw it and said that “in toto” was Latin for “in all, totally, entirely, or all-encompassing.” That might have been a secondary reason to stick with it. It was also easy to remember.

Toto from the Falling in Between Tour (Milan, 2006)

David Paich and Jeff Porcaro were session musicians on several albums and decided to form a band. They put together the group produced the band's eponymous debut album in 1978. It had a Top 5 single "Hold the Line." But their more global fame came with Toto IV (1982) with hits "Africa" and "Rosanna" which reached number 2. Band members played on many other bands' albums as session players throughout the 80s.

 

Soft Machine

 

Soft Machine in a 1970 promo photo

Soft Machine is an English rock band formed in 1966 in Canterbury. they were one of the first British psychedelic acts. They moved into a more progressive rock and jazz fusion sound. According to bassist Hugh Hopper, "We weren't consciously playing jazz-rock. It was more a case of not wanting to sound like other bands. We certainly didn't want a guitarist." Though there were several guitarists in the band's numerous incarnations including Andy Summers, Kevin Ayers, and John Etheridge, but an organ, saxophone, flute, and various keyboards have always been part of their sound.

The band's name comes from the novel The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. His "soft machine" is another name for the human body. Burroughs has said that he was interested in how control mechanisms invade the body.

The main plot appears in chapter VII, "The Mayan Caper." It concerns a secret agent who has the ability to change bodies or metamorphose his own body using "U.T." (undifferentiated tissue). He makes a time travel machine and takes on a gang of Mayan priests. 

It is a strange novel and influenced by Burroughs' own drug experimentation. Perhaps the band was intrigued by his composing method known as the cut-up technique. Burroughs had written about a thousand pages earlier which he cut and pasted to create this novel and others.

They never achieved much commercial success, but the band is considered by critics to have been an influential rock band, if only as an "underground" band with a kind of cult following.

In the 1970s, there were several alternative offshoots of the band formed including the Soft Heap, Soft Head and Soft Ware.