SAILOR'S LAMENT

Evening Star, Issue 19661, 14 September 1927, Page 10

SAILOR'S LAMENT

LANDSMEN JAR NERVES. “Yes, Jack’s a middy now, and on a very fast boat, too. It can do 30 knots an hour.’ r Jack’s proud father, a prominent business man in the city, unconsciously swaggered while I smiled discreetly and wondered what Jack would have said had ho been there (writes Lioutenpntcomraander Bar,stow, R.N., in the London ‘Daily Mail’). Why is it that well-informed men and women who would scorn to confound, say, an airship and an aeroplane, almost invariably describe a ship as a boat:' In spite of all that naval writers like Drury, “ TaffraiJ,” and “ Bartimeus ” have done to break him of tho horrid habit, tho man in tho street, and more particularly his wife and daughter, insist on catling midshipmen “middies,” though the term is unknown in the fleet.

Oblivions of tho fact that a sailor’s ship is his homo, landsmen repeatedly ask; “What ship or—er —boat aro you on?” “ What house or—-er —caravan do yon live on?” would be an equally rational reply. Again, consider the word “knot.” Although many dictionaries written by landsmen say otherwise, a knot is “a nautical mile per hour.” To talk of “30 knots an hour” is therefore equal to saying “30 nautical miles an hour.” That laymen should make mistakes in technical is excusable, but words like ship, boat, midshipman, and knot are not technical; they' are eveiyday words, with plain, straightforward meanings Many landsmen seem quite unable to speak of tho Navy without inventing some pseudo-naval jargon that doesn’t exist. Not long ago we read of the capture of the deposed Greek Dictator in tho “wireless turret” of a destroyer. A destroyer with auy sort of turret would be unique; one fitted with a. “wireless turret” must, indeed, Iks a strange craft. But “wireless room” —which happened to be tho term in general use on board ship for the compartment containing the wireless installation—is too simple for the layman. Tho Navy often wonders why.