Port Out, Starboard Home

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Quinion, Michael (2005). Port Out, Starboard Home: And Other Language Myths. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-101223-4. ; published in the US as These and hundreds of other stories are commonly told and retold whenever people meet. They grow up in part because expressions are often genuinely mysterious. Why, for example, are satisfying meals 'square' rather than any other shape? And how did anyone ever come up with the idea that if you're competent at something you can 'cut the mustard'? Ahoy, matey! Because they don’t want to walk the plank, sailors use the words port and starboard to make sure they know which direction the captain is talking about. However, it’s easy for landlubbers to get turned around by these words. In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the obscure and mysterious history of a now ubiquitous word

Similarly, the distress signal SOS is often believed to be an abbreviation for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls" but was chosen because it has a simple and unmistakable Morse code representation– three dots, three dashes, three dots, sent without any pauses between characters. [16]

Examples include posh , an adjective describing stylish items or members of the upper class. A popular story derives the word as an acronym from "port out, starboard home", referring to 19th-century first-class cabins on ocean liners, which were shaded from the sun on outbound voyages east (e.g. from Britain to India) and homeward voyages west. [12] The word's actual etymology is unknown, but more likely related to Romani påš xåra ("half-penny") or to Urdu (borrowed from Persian) safed-pōśh ("white robes"), a term for wealthy people. [13] Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft, aircraft and spacecraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the bow (front). List of Onedin Line episodes — The Onedin Line episode list shows details of the 91 episodes of the BBC television series The Onedin Line. Contents 1 Series 1 2 Series 2 3 … Wikipedia Bennett, Joe (30 April 2012). "Everything you ever wanted to know about the word 'chav' ". Ideas Lab Predictor Podcast, University of Birmingham . Retrieved 2023-10-13.

Acronym and initialism — For acronyms used on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Acronyms. Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or name. These components may be individual letters (as in CEO) or parts of words (as in Benelux and … Wikipedia US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Why do ships use 'port' and 'starboard' instead of 'left' and 'right?' ". oceanservice.noaa.gov . Retrieved March 9, 2020. Forget your lefts and rights, British Rowing can officially confirm that ‘port’ and ‘starboard’ are the terms to use when rowing! AMBER Alert – America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response". Amberalert.gov. 2007-11-01. Archived from the original on 27 July 2010 . Retrieved 2010-07-08.

Since the steering oar was on the right side of the boat, it would tie up at the wharf on the other side. Hence the left side was called port. [6] The Oxford English Dictionary cites port in this usage since 1543. [7]

Then, towards the end of the nineteenth century, an alternate meaning of ‘posh’ arose, again from that constant stream of living language, slang. Once again, this ‘posh’ was a noun rather than the more familiar adjective we use today, although, interestingly, this ‘posh’ referred to a dandy: a well-dressed, and often well-off, man about town. Among other sources, this ‘posh’ appears in the 1902 book Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present, compiled by John S. Farmer and William Ernest Henley (the latter of whom was the author of the poem ‘ Invictus’ as well as the inspiration for the character Long John Silver). Starboard’ derives from the Old English steorbord, which literally means the side from which the craft is steered – traditionally the right-hand side before ships had central rudders.

Morton, Harry (January 1, 1983). The Whale's Wake. University of Hawaii Press. p.84. ISBN 9780824808303 . Retrieved March 20, 2020– via Google Books.