NOTES ON NAUTICAL LANGUAGE. 



BY HENRY L. BROOMALL. 



The technical nomenclature of an art differs from that of 

 a science because art precedes science in human development. 

 As an art develops, it adapts its language to its necessities 

 and changes without reference to the causes and principles 

 that underlie particular acts. Science, on the other hand, 

 involves retrospect, comparison and meditation, and these 

 processes produce a nomenclature expressing relationship and 

 classification ; it is an after-thought. 



The technical language of an art, therefore, has particu- 

 lar interest and value for linguistic and anthropological 

 studies because it directly represents the steps of human pro- 

 gress in the making. It has more vitality. As an expres- 

 sion of humanity^ it is less artificial. And of this, the lan- 

 guage of the sailor is an apt illustration because the pursuit 

 of his art segregates him and his fellows from his original 

 community and gives full play to linguistic peculiarities. 



Navigation is an old art among the English people. From 

 the time of the adventurous forays of the so-called Northmen, 

 of which the settlement of England by our Teutonic ances- 

 tors was a result, the sailor and his art have constituted the 

 elements from which has grown the English commercial 

 empire of to-day. The sailor's language preserves words and 

 forms of speech that are now changed or lost in standard 

 English. This is illustrated by his active use of the prefix a, 

 equivalent to on, as in aboard, abeam, astern, amidships, 

 aweather, atrip. He puts the helm hard alee or aport or astar- 

 board. A sort of adverbial use of to is delightfully easy and 

 expressive: the ship heaves to, brings to or comes to: a coast 

 is steep-to with no soundings close-to ; or the ship has a lean-to 

 to windward. 



, Upon heaving the lead the sailor reports the result as "and 

 a quarter five," which means five fathoms and a quarter, or, 

 " a quarter less five," which means four fathoms and three- 



