# Marooned **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 2, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783 "2005-12-02T18:49:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Frank\_Panqua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/977dab/32.png) [@Frank\_Panqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_Panqua)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/1 "2005-12-02T18:49:38Z")
Cecil, Couldn’t you consider Ernest H. Shackleton for your column on being shipwrecked? Granted, he wasn’t on a tropical island, but he sort of fits the bill. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/2 "2005-12-02T20:49:58Z")
> [@Frank Panqua](#): > > Cecil, > > Couldn’t you consider Ernest H. Shackleton for your column on being shipwrecked? Granted, he wasn’t on a tropical island, but he sort of fits the bill. > > Thanks. I was thinking the same thing, except that he 1) was with a crew, not solitary 5) I don’t think it was for a year and 6) he had the supplies of the Edurance as well as some small lifeboats. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/3 "2005-12-02T21:28:36Z")
Welcome to the SDMB, Frank. It is appreciated if you provide a link to the online column when you comment on one of Cecil’s columns. Doing so can be as simple as pasting the URL into your post, making sure to leave a blank space on either side. Like so: [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/051202.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/051202.html) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/4 "2005-12-02T21:51:58Z")
As I understand it, to be “marooned” was originally a punishment where a seaman was dumped on an island or uninhabited coast and left there to live or die. How often did this happen? ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/5 "2005-12-02T21:56:34Z")
_ **Marooned** _ Ever see the MST3K version? Genius. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/6 "2005-12-02T22:04:00Z")
An interesting related work to check out is [In Search of Robinson Crusoe](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465076998/qid=1133560734/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4582043-7137614?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) By Timothy Severin. He goes into the Alexander Selkirk story in some depth and discusses island survival. ---
**Author:** ![j\_sum1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@j\_sum1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_sum1)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/7 "2005-12-03T06:43:32Z")
I was thinking Shackleton as well. And although not tropical nor alone, I think his situation fits the criteria. After their boat was trapped in the ice they lived on board for a number of months. Then due to doubts about the boat’s safety they camped next to the boat for a while. They attempted an over-ice march to land but discovered that the progress that they could mak in a day was considerably less than the drift of the ice. They then camped on the ice a couple of miles from the boat – only salvaging a few more materials before it was crushed and sank. They had some food supplies, but mostly lived on seal and penguin meat cooked on a makeshift blubber stove. Eventually the ice broke up and they sailed in life boats for a week to get to Elephant Island. When they touched land it was the first time in over 18 months, most of that camped on the ice. They left 22 guys there and the other six sailed 800 nautical miles to South Georgia Island to mount a rescue attempt. When the guys were finally picked up from Elephant Island they had been there for four months with only the minimal amount of supplies that they had carried in their lifeboats. They had eeked out a subsistance living from what they could scavange – a few penguins and a couple of seals before they disappeared for the winter, followed up with seaweed that they gathered from the rocks. I think that counts. ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/8 "2005-12-03T08:07:19Z")
> [@j\_sum1](#): > > I was thinking Shackleton as well. And although not tropical nor alone, I think his situation fits the criteria. Well, not when the criteria were that the person be a (quoting Cecil): > [@](#): > > (1) solitary (2) product of civilization who is (3) unexpectedly marooned on (4) a deserted island for (5) a year or more with (6) only such resources as you’d reasonably expect to find, i.e., naturally occurring food, water, and so on plus a modicum of junk washing up on the beach. As long as I’m here, I’ll note that Cecil’s use of the term “deserted” island is incorrect. (He _is_ just following the usage in the letter he’s answering, but that’s no excuse, is it? ;)) “Deserted” implies that the island once had inhabitants who later abondoned it, which isn’t usually what is meant. It should be “desert” island. “Desert” in this sense refers not to arid sandy places like the Sahara, but is an adejctive meaning (as Webster’s puts it) “desolate and sparsely occupied or unoccupied.” ---
**Author:** ![irish52](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/779978/32.png) [@irish52](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irish52)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/9 "2005-12-03T13:24:20Z")
> [@Loopus](#): > > Well, not when the criteria were that the person be a (quoting Cecil): > As long as I’m here, I’ll note that Cecil’s use of the term “deserted” island is incorrect. (He _is_ just following the usage in the letter he’s answering, but that’s no excuse, is it? ;)) “Deserted” implies that the island once had inhabitants who later abondoned it, which isn’t usually what is meant. It should be “desert” island. “Desert” in this sense refers not to arid sandy places like the Sahara, but is an adejctive meaning (as Webster’s puts it) “desolate and sparsely occupied or unoccupied.” Substitute “uninhabited” for deserted. And really Shackelton doesn’t fit the bill because he really only qualifies as (2) product of civilization . He and his crew endured much, but it was anything but unexpected and certainly the planning for such a possibility was the reason they survived. DG ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/10 "2005-12-03T20:44:19Z")
_Posted by Loopus:_ > [@](#): > > As long as I’m here, I’ll note that Cecil’s use of the term “deserted” island is incorrect. (He is just following the usage in the letter he’s answering, but that’s no excuse, is it? ) “Deserted” implies that the island once had inhabitants who later abondoned it, which isn’t usually what is meant. It should be “desert” island. “Desert” in this sense refers not to arid sandy places like the Sahara, but is an adejctive meaning (as Webster’s puts it) “desolate and sparsely occupied or unoccupied.” Thanks for saying it; I had intended to chime in on that topic, but you put it better than I would have. Up until a few years ago I always heard the phrase “desert island”; then somebody started saying “deserted island” and that seems to have become standard, but incorrect, useage. For God’s sake, people, if “Gilligan’s Island” isn’t a definitive authority, what is? _The ship set down on the shore of this Uncharted desert isle . . ._ ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/11 "2005-12-04T00:48:08Z")
This discussion of “desert” vs “deserted” got me thinking. How likely is it that there are any islands left in the world that have never had a human being set foot on them? Could all “desert” island also be (under a very broad interpretation of the word) “deserted” – i.e. witness to a human presence (however briefly) and then abandoned? I know that as Polynesian peoples spread across the western and central Pacific, they commonly used the profusion of small islands and atolls to rest, repair boats, fish and trap, etc. Throw in a few hundred years of western civilization’s oceangoing and need for the same, and I’d wager that almost every island has had a human at least set foot on it and then move on. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marooned/333783/12 "2005-12-04T03:25:32Z")
I worked with a guy who was ethnically Chinese but was living in Viet Nam with his family. During the war, they and others left on a rickety boat and were eventually stranded on an uninhabited island. They were eventually rescued by the US Navy, but in the meantime, they did things like dig holes to trap komodo dragons for food. Not strictly relevant to the OP, but an interesting story.