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Sailing language

Posted 6 months, 25 days ago

Sailing language
SAILING AS A SECOND LANGUAGEby John Riise, Latitude 38It's not like it's ever going to happen, but I've long felt the world - at least the sailing world - would be a better place without all the salty lingo of days gone by... especially when it comes to drawing new people into the sport. On top of wind angles, heeling, sail trim and everything else that newbies have to soak up, why further confuse them with a blizzard of outdated words to explain what can much more easily be passed on with 'regular' English? Doesn't 'downstairs' convey the idea more accurately than 'down below' (which is redundant anyway)? And 'port' can mean either a direction - or that glass thing in the side of the cabin that you look through. So how about 'left' and 'window'? Is it 'anchors aweigh' (up) or 'anchors away' (down)? And 'knots' . . . would that be a measurement of speed, or do you want me to attach a rope to something? And WHY knots? Why not miles per hour? Easy to understand for both terrestrial or maritime drivers (not helmsmen).Front, back, middle, right, left, - all in common usage and readily understandable. Forward, aft, athwartships, starboard, port - a bit ambiguous, open to interpretation (how FAR forward? Athwart-what?) or requiring some little ditty to remember (lessee, 'port' has four letters and 'left' has four, so...) You don't have to learn a whole new language to drive a car or learn to swim, so why do it with sailing? Sure, every sport requires that you learn a few new words, so we'd have to keep 'mast', 'rudder', 'keel' and a few others. But otherwise, let's put pointless nautical lingo out to pasture with Latin and use it only when necessary for historical purposes or pirate movies. Full Story »

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