Evening Post. TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1924. "STARBOARD" & 'TORT"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 18, 22 January 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1924. "STARBOARD" & 'TORT"

The distinction between " port " and " starboard " is about the first thing that the land-lubber who desires to set up as a nautical expert has to learn, but he will be saved the trouble if the suggestion which is agitating shipping men in London should be carried out. Some old salts are doubtless proclaiming that Britannja will cease to rule the waves and the Navy and the /Mercantile Marine will g0 to the devil if S u C h time-honoured terms as starboard " and " port " are to gl ve way to the landsman's right ".and "left," and there are few of us who will not sympathise with their objections on sentimental grounds. But on sea, as on land, the public safety must be the supreme law. • Custom and sentiment and "historical association pleaded strongly against tire substitution of khaki for red in the uniforms of our soldiers, but the beautiful appearance of the old colour on the parade ground and on the pages of history was not allowed to prevail against its obvious unfitness for the conditions of to-day. "The thin red line" which won us Waterloo and Albuera could not have won the war against Germany. "Starboard" and " port " must follow* the thin red line into the limbo of history if they can be proved to be inimical to the public safety.

Not so very long ago " starboard " and " port " had to make their way against the same kind of prejudice which is working in their favour now, though at that time the change proposed was^neither so radical nor so open to argument as that now in question. It is difficult to believe that right down to Trafalgar, and for more than a generation afterwards, the nautical distinction which for all the purposes of peace and war is^just as vital as that between bow and stern was signified by terms which might well have been devised by an enemy for the sake of confusion. Not "starboard" and ■port," but "starboard" and larboard" were the terms in general use from the .days of Drake to those of Nelson inclusive. The almost equally confusing "stearbard" and "baeorbord" date back to the very beginnings of the British Navy in the' reign of Alfred. For the purposes of the poet " starboard " and " larboard " serve as conveniently as " mountain " and "fountain." When Tennyson wrote

Roll'd to .starboard, roll'd to larboard. V\ hen the surge was seething free, he had terms to his hand for which " starboard " and " port " would have made very poor substitutes, and "right" and "left" still poorer.

But, except for the poet, the old rhyming nomenclature was surely as inconvenient and sometimes as" dangerous as it could well have been. Yet it lingered on till 1844, when the change to the terms now in use was effected by an Admiralty Order of which'the material parts are as follow:—

The word "Port" is frequently ■ „ . substituted . . . for the word Larboard," and as' ... the distinction between " Starboard " and " Port " is bo much more marked than that between "Starboard and "Larboard," it is their Lordships' direction that the word " Larboard" shall no lonjier be used. ■ ■ ■ °

Within eighteen months the' United -States Navy Department had followed this lead. ' " larboard " was thus very wisely discarded by both the English-speakiDg Powers, and " port," which was already in use in the time of Drake, and had since, as the Admiralty Order shows, attained a wide currency, took its place. After an unchallenged run of nearly eighty years, "port" itself is now attacked as not sufficiently distinct in sound from "starboard" to serve with safety any longer. We are told that when a steamer proceeding slowly in the narrow waters of the Mersey or the Thames " a few turns of the wheel in the wrong direction set the bows swinging in a manner which cannot quickly be corrected, and almost inevitably means grounding or collision." To argue, in this way seems, just as superfluous as to point out the risks of a few turns of the wheel m the wrong direction when the vessel is at full speed. 'Anything •which may result in a few of these wrong turns is so full of peril that it must not be tolerated. The only question is whether the resemblance between " starboard •" and " port " is sufficiently close to constitute such a cause. To the eye and in ordinary speech a confusion between the two seems almfbst impossible, but whether, when the terms are shouted under conditions which make hearing difficult, they ure likely to be contused is a question of fact which must be left to the expeftfs. That " iwt " and the secpad syllable of "starboard"

make a perfect assonance is obyious, and the labial and the dental with which they both begin and end respectively increase the chance of confusion. In normal use the extra syllable in " starboard " makes confusion impossible, but when frequently and loudly called a Jissyliable or even a trisyllable has a tendency to be contracted, and this may be the root of the trouble hare. It is a matter on which the landsman must look (for guidance to those who really know, and he will follow their controversy with interest. While they are at it, they might also settle another question which has been debated from time to time—viz., whether a better method for distinguishing the two sides of a.ship at night than the red and green lights at present in use could not be devised? "