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Position: 45°31’07.3″N 122°40’58.4″W
Nautical terminology is highly specific. When the captain calls out, “Double the starboard bow line and tie it off on the starboard bow cleat, then release the port breast lines”, there isn’t room for interpretation. It is a specific order, with a series of clear steps, issued in a command-and-control environment. Of course, if the crew is green (i.e, new or nauseous) the captain may have to resort to clarifying words like, “No, you bilge rats, that rope there. Yes, that one! Untie it you barnacle eating dotards! And be quick about it!”
If the language of sailing is cryptic, it is at least specific. Each part of the ship has a name with attendant verbs and adjectives for its proper use. It is not jargon. The vocabulary of sailing is codified knowledge, and “…codifying knowledge in agreed ways can be a serious business. Well over 1,000 passengers and crew lost their lives between 1976 and 2000 in accidents where misunderstandings over language were found to have played a role. Pilots use highly standardised and scripted terminology in order to reduce the scope for potentially fatal errors.”[1]
Business Speak (BS)
Compare this to business speak, a form of language designed to communicate status, not information. Take for example this phrase: “By leveraging a data-driven strategic framework that harmonizes innovative foresight with agile execution, we empower organizations to not only navigate the complexities of an evolving marketplace but also to seize transformative opportunities that drive sustainable growth and competitive advantage in real time.” There is no information in this word salad. It is a bunch of phrases strung together that the speaker believes will impress the listener. The listener is either impressed or spots the bulls*it for what it is – bulls*it. If you hang around highly paid consultants, you will hear a great deal of this kind of gibberish.
Back when I had aspirations of becoming a barrister (wig and all), Alfred Lord Denning was Master of the Rolls[2]. Old Tom Denning was a rare animal in the ranks of judges. He believed that for the law to be viewed as fair, it should be clearly written and easily understood. “I avoid long sentences like the plague, because they lead to obscurity. It is no good if the [reader] cannot follow them…”, he wrote. Yet, anyone with any experience with the law knows it is a profession that uses obtuse and obscure language as its moat and battlements. Lord Denning lost his fight against legal bulls*it, but thanks to his storytelling skills and plainspoken style he wrote some highly entertaining judgements. One of which, his report on the Profumo affair, became an instant bestseller on its publication.
CryptICs
In some cases, not knowing the lingo is a practical impediment to stupidity. If you don’t know your ailerons from your altimeters you shouldn’t be in the cockpit of an airplane. Don’t know your metacarpals from your metatarsals? Then stay out of the operating room. A new arena busily constructing linguistic moats and drawbridges around itself is the business of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is 15 years old and supports a dazzling array of neologisms that, without a lexicon, are confusing even for people in the industry.
Take, for example, SegWit. A SegWit is a Segregated Witness. Wikipedia defines SegWit as: “…the name used for an implemented soft fork change in the transaction format of Bitcoin.” Got that? I didn’t think so. Other terms, like the mnemonic HODL, are more accessible. HODL (I say hōd-le, but you be you) stands for: Hold On for Dear Life. In crypto parlance it means hold and don’t sell your asset(s) in volatile markets. Doubtlessly, the loudest HODL voices are the least objective. Nevertheless, if you want to dabble in cryptocurrencies, it is worth learning the terminology. The same logic suggests if you are leasing a car, it is worth understanding the basics of loan sharking.
Not Just Any Port
Nautical terms have a long and rich history. Many words reach back to the origins of sailing. While we don’t aspire to exclusivity on Aleta, if you don’t know the difference between starboard, port and Madeira, there is no berth for you. Granted, should you turn up with a couple of decent bottles, we will be happy to teach you. If you need a reference for nautical terms, there are dozens on the internet. One of the finest books is Dean King’s “A Sea of Words, A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O’Brian.”
[1] The Economist – June 15, 2023
[2] Britain has some of the English language’s highest barriers to assimilation. So rich is the language, that after at least a decade of work only the very dedicated may pass for British.
