The landlubbing phrases "stick to the bitter end" and "faithful to the bitter end" are derivations of the nautical term and refer to anyone who insists on adhering to a course of action without regard to consequences.īOATSWAIN, COCKSWAIN (OR COXSWAIN), SKIFFSWAINĪs required by 17th century law, British ships-of-war carried three smaller boats - the boat, the cock boat, and the skiff. Nautical usage has somewhat expanded the original definition in that today the end of any line, secured to bitts or not, is called a bitter end. Thus, the last of the line secured to the bitts is known as the bitter end. After long practice, it came to be called binnacle list.Īs any able-bodied seaman can tell you, a turn of a line around a bitt, those wooden or iron posts sticking through a ship's deck, is called a bitter. The term binnacle list, in lieu of sick list, originated years ago when ships' corpsmen used to place a list of the sick on the binnacle each morning to inform the captain about the crew's health. Their confusion is understandable.īinnacle is defined as the stand or housing for the ship's compass located on the bridge. Many novice sailors, confusing the words "binnacle" and barnacle, have wondered what their illnesses had to do with crusty growths found on the hull of a ship. Bamboozle meant to deceive a passing vessel as to your ship's origin or nationality by flying an ensign other than your own - a common practice of pirates. The word was used in the days of sail, also, but the intent was not hilarity.
In today's Navy when you intentionally deceive someone, usually as a joke, you are said to have bamboozled them. A Moorish chief was an "emir," and the chief of all chiefs was an "emir-al." Our English word is derived directly from the Moorish. An admiral is the senior ranking flag officer in the US Navy, but his title comes from the name given the senior ranking officer in the Moorish army of many years ago.
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