I’m partial to “Pray, do not encumber me with your needless solicitude” (though I find occasions to which it’s suitable frustratingly rare).
No specific phrase thus far today but seeing as she likes spotting birds, whenever anyone notices anything interesting the response is now “where away?” followed by a reference to points and starboard/larboard.
Apart from my wife, she’s still not playing the game. She’ll crack eventually.
I make it a point to refer to a guy who shares my love of the O’Brian novels as “my particular friend.”
I am stealing that so hard that you should probably contact the police.
I find Killick a tremendous source of amusing language (by or about). Beginning sentences with “which” is fun.
“Light along there!”
“Which I am comin’ as quick as I can”
She is still having immense fun with the books.
Her reaction to Diana’s treatment of Stephen when they first meet was one of mock teenage fury.
She also (like the rest of us) thought that Jack dressed as a bear was deeply, deeply wierd.
Current phrases are “bear a hand there” and “treated shabbily” and pretty much any reference to a floating vessel of any kind will provoke a back and forth regarding sloop/frigate etc.
It ain’t stealin’ if it weren’t mine t’begin with!
Someday I really must remember to ask my sons to “Clap on, handsomely there” when I need their help around the house.
Since the pandemic, more than half of this skyscraper’s tenants have moved out. This has resulted in an emptied out parking garage. The garage is four stories tall, and the floors resemble the below-decks of a ship, with their low ceilings and poor lighting.
Whenever I enter and I drive through an empty floor, I say “A clean sweep, fore and aft”, and feel quite clever. All those floors/decks need are some genuine smashers, pushed up to the outer walls and lashed in place, and they’d look like the decks of a man o’ war, after beating to quarters.
Phrase of the day:
I must examine your excrement. And so you shall, sir, so you shall.
or
He said with great complacency
You almost certainly want to say ‘Clap on, smartly there’. Smartly means quickly; handsomely means deliberately.
Ah, thanks. That distinction eluded me in the books. I thought they were more or less synonymous.
In other news, she has now taken it upon herself to learn the Boccherini piece from the end of “Master and Commander”. (The last maritime number she picked up was “shipping up to Boston”)
I may steal her rosin and see if she picks up on the relevance as she makes her way through the books.
Just finished this book: https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Words-Third-Companion-Seafaring/dp/0805066152
Lots of good definitions of obscure naval terms, and two short but interesting essays on the Royal Navy and naval medicine. I was disappointed, though, by some of the author’s odd subject choices and emphases. For instance, there are longer entries for Gibraltar and Guy Fawkes’s Night than for HMS Surprise herself. Actual references to Aubrey, Maturin and their adventures are few - the entries in the lexicon don’t include any citations to O’Brian’s stories, so I often wondered, “Why is the author telling me about this?”
Still, probably worth a read for the true fan.
Just came across a reference to another adventurous Aubrey in English literature:
George Griffith was apparently a very prolific science fiction writer (who also wrote in other genres), a contemporary of H.G. wells, but virtually forgotten today. I haven’t read any of his stuff, but he was reportedly so massively pro-British that one writer classified him as a “bad writer” on that issue alone. But he was probably very influential.
Watching this thread bobbing to the surface again has inspired me: I think I’ll have another go at Master and Commander.
The challenge for me with O’Brian’s novels is that they are significantly thicker than the Hornblower counterparts. I listen to audiobooks as I run, so with a 1h run every weekday it still will take me close to a month to finish one off. I’d be through two Hornblowers in that time.
I also seem to recall getting bogged down in the second book of the series as it bait-and-switched me from a swashbuckler to a Jane Austen novel–I might be remembering another book or author, but for an age-of-sail-fiction novel it seemed to spend way too much time on land discussing social drama.
Yes, but why is it called the 'dog watch’?
Okay, serious question for other serious O’Brian readers. I’m curious how others approach the whole naval jargon thing. I mean is there anyone who busts out a glossary and says to themselves … I simply must understand this arcane term before I go any further with this tale…
I like the jargon. I look up a lot of it with my companion reader, but most of the technical sailing stuff I just gloss over, like other folks here have pointed out.
I love how a lot of antique sailing terms have worked their way into English language, and people still use them without necessarily knowing their origin: “Show him the ropes” “the devil to pay”, and “going loggerheads”.
I think it grows on you over time.
Being in the Navy helps for the basics, but there are so many terms from the age of sail that are opaque to modern sailors.
So the after a bit of talk of shrouds, mizzen masts, and such, I was curious enough to look up some details on age-of-sail rigging. That process repeats itself over time.
After a several or so of these novels (Hornblower, in my case), the naval jargon is almost transparent.
I’ll use ‘club haul’ as an example. I pretty well figured out its general meaning from context after encountering the term in several books (and multiple subsequent readings) of the series. But when I was reading it the first time I felt no particular compulsion to research its meaning in order to get the gist of the maneuver, or for that matter its impact on the tale.