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Sayings from shipping that we still use today

[QUOTE="Sea Burd, post: 109150, member: 8469"
so where did the cat out of the bag come from?
[/QUOTE]
The cat was the wipp used to punish seamen usually made from 9 ropes with spikes wound in the ropes (Cat of tails). So letting the cat out the bag Indicated that there was some real bad things coming down.

jim
 
Chips Ahoy, Row Row Row Your Boat, Have a Seat Of Ease, Walk the Plank!, Throw Him Overboard!!
 
Sea Burd said:
I was watching a show the other night, they showed that French Had a new weapon, heating cannon balls red hot ( hot shot) and it burnt ships down. When they went through a sail, is caused a fire immediately.
so where did the cat out of the bag come from?
Click to expand...
One punishment on board ship was flogging with a cat-o-ninetails. So "cat out of the bag" was literally the cat-o-ninetails was out of its storage bag and ready to use...or the cat is out and ready to apply punishment.
 
Sea Burd said:
I was watching a show the other night, they showed that French Had a new weapon, heating cannon balls red hot ( hot shot) and it burnt ships down. When they went through a sail, is caused a fire immediately.
so where did the cat out of the bag come from?
Click to expand...
One theory is that it refers to the Cat-o-nine-tails used to whip sailors who transgressed. It was supposedly kept in a bag when not in use. May or may not be true. It would be interesting to know the origin of some of these sayings, some are obvious but many are not.
 
Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey is often mentioned as a naval term referring to cannon balls being stored on a brass rack which would contract in cold weather spilling the canon balls but there are many theories that this is not actually the true origin.
 
When I did a tour of the Constitution, the tour guide told us many shipping sayings, one the gunners had hammocks above the cannons, where they slept, at port, the “girls” would come on to see the men, if they got pregnant, the baby was a son of a gun

three squares, = the plates were square, thee squares a day. Something with the plates being stored on end, they wont roll out of the stg at sail.

mind your P’s and Q’s, = pay your bar tab for your pints and Quarts. Dont run up a bill at ports that you don’t pay.
 
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Brass Monkey: the brass tray at the quarterdeck on which a small stack (pyramid) of cannon balls are displayed. In extremely cold weather, the brass shrank more than the cannon balls, thus the phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."
 
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