Three Sheets to the Wind

I thought this book was kind of a hoot! I'm amazed at how much of our everyday words come from these salty sailors! I use a lot of it constantly. I have arthritis, and when it gets bad I tend to grab onto my hip. I call it listing to the starboard side! I've always thought that if there is such a thing as past lives, then I must have been a sailor. My favorite thing from this book? Yeah, that would be a cup of Joe! I won't tell you here, but it was funny how this saying came about! My thanks to Cynthia Barrett, and Netgalley for allowing me to read, enjoy and review this.

I loved this little book! It is full of interesting words we use that I would have never guessed came from sailors and ships. There was a lot of humor and some scandalous association to common phrases. I highly recommend it.

Three Sheets to the Wind: The Nautical Origins of Everyday Expressions by Cynthia Barrett was an entertaining read.

Cynthia Barrett comes from generations of seafaring men, her grandfather a whaler and her father a Navy man. In her attractive, illustrated volume she offers the entomology of phrases and terms that are rooted in maritime activities.

Presented in alphabetical order, each phrase includes an explanation of its origin and contemporary use, illustrated with excerpts from literature ranging from Homer to Melville to Patrick O'Brian.

I was a girl when I discovered Joan Lowell's pseudo-biography of a girl's life growing up on a sailing ship, Cradle of the Deep, and ever since I have enjoyed reading books about the age of sail, including the Nordoff and Hall Bounty books and Forester's Horatio Hornblower books. So, I was familiar with the original meanings of many of the terms, but others were a revelation.

When Archie Bunker called Edith a "dingbat" who knew a dingbat was slang for a deck mop made of used rope ends which would fly about uncontrollably while in use?

Speaking of old rope, the ends had to be repaired and spliced during times of calm, the sailors so employed being said to be "at loose ends."

I remember when blue jeans were called dungarees. Dungri is a Hindi word for cotton cloth. The first sailor's pants were made of old sails. Later, blue serge bell bottom pants were invented to make rolling up the pants legs easier for sailors employed at swapping the deck. When I was a teen bell bottom jeans were the rage.

A sailor from Belgium stowed his duds in a bag called a Duffle after the rough woolen cloth they used to make the sailor's clothing.

200 words and expressions are covered, and I am sure many will be surprised to learn the origin of sayings we still employ today.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

This book explains the origin of various nautical terms. Many terms included in the book I did not realize had a nautical origin. Each explanation is brief, but well written. Very interesting and enlightening.