VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions Best one-liner you know?

Hey! Gator we could have had a few fights, sung a few songs, told a few ditties, sunk a few gallons, & been attacked by a "Rhinocrocklepig" together in the past. Ever in Subic?

As with most old sayings there are a number of claimed origins, all very similar, as long as the general gist is ok I can't see that it matters.
Do you people use the term "Posh"?
Supposedly from the days of the Empire & Raj, with regular passage to India.
Port Out Starboard Home.
Only the "Hoity toit" could afford the luxury of choosing the cool north facing cabins for their passage.
The truth of this is now under question.

Kipper

Cool Kipper, had not heard of where POSH started...

Soldiers started the term of "get off your high horse".

Back to the water, cool story of where the term "stateroom" started for passenger ships.

Sailing close to the wind
Took the wind out of his sails

These comes from the "Tea Clippers"
Who said Boston??
Could refer to any sail boat race though.
The different tea companies would race their clippers back to England, first unloaded got the better market price, it was a straight race with the roaring forties around the Cape Of Good Hope,
The closer the ship got to the wind, wind coming over the bow, the greater the speed, the greater the stress on the ship & the greater the chance of mishap. Go one degree wrong & you lost speed or the wind lost the sail with the possibility of a snapped mast.
If two clippers entered port together than they would try to get between the wind & the opponent thus "Taking the wind from their sails" & slowing the other ship.
This was also a battle tactic, without wind your opponent was stranded.

It's suprising how many of the older ones started at sea.

Kipper

Wow, I've been away and now six pages, that's great. Posh, love it, who knew. Port out starboard home. and why Port and Starboard anyway, what's wrong with right and left?

Gary

I'm not sure on this Gary but somewhere in the depths of the big gap between my ears is this, and I "Stand to be corrected" (From schooling?)

Port was originally "Port Side" This was the side you tied up to the jetty because on the other side you had the "Steerboard" or "Larboard"
The rudder was ofset to the "Stearboard" side.

Kipper

Here is the deal on "Port" and "Starboard":

Starboard is the nautical term (used on boats and ships) that refers to the right side of a vessel, as perceived by a person facing forward (i.e., towards the bow).

The starboard side of a vessel is indicated with a green light.

The origin of term comes from old boating practices. Before boats had rudders on their centerline, boats were steered by use of a specialized oar. This oar was held by a sailor located towards the stern (back) of the boat. However, like most of the rest of society, there were many more right-handed sailors than left-handed sailors. This meant that the right-handed sailors holding the steering oar (which had been broadened to provide better control) used to stand on the right side of the boat. The word starboard is a corruption of steering board.

Similarly, the term for the left side of the boat, port (indicated by a red light), is derived from the practice of sailors mooring on the left side (i.e., the Portboard side) as to prevent the steering boards from being crushed. Because the words portboard and starboard sounded too similar to be distingued under windy sailing conditions, portboard was shortened to port.

I believe it was originally larbord, for lading side, but was changed to port to avoid confusion with starbord.

Exactly! An archaic version of the term "port" is larboard. The term larboard, when shouted in the wind, was presumably too easy to confuse with starboard -- both words have two sylables --and so the word port came to replace it, referring to the side of the ship where cargo is loaded from the port. The term larboard continued its use well in to the 1850's by whalers, despite the term being long supersceded by Port in the merchant vessel service at the time.

As far as the etymology of sheets, as related to sails, I find no mention of sheets ever meaning the entire sail. The Anglo-Saxon word, sceata, originally referred to that part of the sail which is presently called the clew and sceatline, which controlled the clew, was abreviated to sheet. On a four masted fore and aft rigged ship, you would still be able to control the vessle by losing one sheet to the wind, but not by losing three. I don't think Chevrolet ever built sailboats. (Thought it best to mention our favorite make.)

The phrase "Three Sheets To The Wind" dates back to 1821. We ignorant landlubbers might think that a sheet is a sail, but in traditional sailing-ship days, a sheet was actually a rope, particularly one attached to the bottom corner of a sail (it actually comes from an Old English term for the corner of a sail). The sheets were vital, since they trimmed the sail to the wind. If they ran loose, the sail would flutter about in the wind and the ship would wallow off its course out of control.

Extend this idea to sailors on shore leave, staggering back to the ship after a good night on the town, well tanked up. The irregular and uncertain locomotion of these jolly tars must have reminded onlookers of the way a ship moved in which the sheets were loose. Perhaps one loose sheet might not have been enough to get the image across, so the speakers borrowed the idea of a three-masted sailing ship with three sheets loose, so the saying became three sheets in the wind.

Many people think a sheet is a sail, but it is actually the rope, not the sail.

"HE WENT BELLYWUMP OVER THE FENCE."
This refers to a person who tries something but dosen't succeed just as a cow tries to jump a fence and lands on it with it's Belly making it but it's Wump "RUMP" not.

"He is three yards short of a first down!" :eek: :eek:

One wave short of a shipwreck.

"A disaster waiting to happen!" :eek: :eek: :eek:

"Defeat, snatched from the jaws of victory!"

"Three laps short of finishing the race!"

"Irish Priest", " Thats the turd bird thats flown by this window". Seventh Grade - Saint Patricks School.

For JYD, "three laps shy of finising the bowl."

Now that we're back on track, I take it all back.....

Bill.

"Say it ain't so Joe!" :p :p :p

"I'll have a cup of Joe".

A lot of restaurants have the following sign in their windows: "Shoes and shirts required".

Hum......what about pants? :confused:

If Quitters never win & winners never quit
Who said quit while ahead?

"He kicked the bucket."

"He went belly-up."
What would you say if it was "She went??????."