Seafaring Language: The Jargon of Ships

How Illiteracy Shaped Seafaring Language

Anyone who has enjoyed literature and films portraying life at sea may have quickly noticed that the ship environment is alive with unfamiliar jargon. Words such as "bosun" and "stays'l" might feel the air, but upon looking in a dictionary, no such words seem to exist! The reason for many of the warped pronunciations (and spellings) of some sailing jargon comes down to the capabilities of the sailors themselves. For many, literacy was a boon available only to the privileged.

When a sailor didn't know how to read, it was likely that they didn't know how to spell, either. Thus, sailors needed to rely only on the pronunciation of a word as picked up from others. Because crews in the age of sail could be made of dozens of people from countries all around the world, these pronunciations were neither consistent nor always accurate to the words' original spelling. Thus, some terminology shifted away from a 1:1 spelling to pronunciation correlation. For instance: Bosun - an experienced sailor who is in charge of keeping the deck and exterior of a ship in good condition. The pronunciation "bosun" is a result of most crewmembers' inability to read the word "boatswain" and pronounce it as such. Consider also the origin of boatswain in British English, where it would have been frequently pronounced "boat-swayn." Coxin - the coxin is in charge of navigation on a ship. Like boatswain, the original term is  "coxswain," which was shortened due to crew illiteracy and a reliance on pronunciation across cultures with different accents.

(Adapted from: https://www.uslanguageservices.com/)