Sea Terms Come Ashore

Landlubbers use a remarkable number of terms and expressions that originated at sea. This readable dictionary of maritime vernacular explains the meanings behind "catspaw," "kick the bucket," "palaver," "three sheets in the wind," and other curious lingo. It's a great gift for any sailor or lover of language. "Entertaining and informative." — The Washington Post.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

Landlubbers use a remarkable number of terms and expressions that originated at sea. This readable dictionary of maritime vernacular explains the meanings behind "catspaw," "kick the bucket," "palaver," "three sheets in the wind," and other curious lingo. It's a great gift for any sailor or lover of language. "Entertaining and informative." — The Washington Post.

From hardy Nantucket whalers to Elizabethan sea dogs, from grizzled fishermen in Nova Scotia to the crews of clipper ships, the men who made their living on the sea left as part of their legacy a remarkable contribution to the English language. An astonishing variety of words, sayings, and idiomatic expressions are explained in alphabetically organized entries in this authoritative and entertaining work. Illustrations.