G'day,

michaelr: As Nigel says, "laggard" is from lag ... and "lag", in English apparently comes from the British children's dialect "counting" terms: fog, seg & lag - meaning 1st, 2nd & 3rd (...!).

Nigel: I guess that "lagan" is a bit more definite about what happened after the cargo was "jetsam" (ultimately a corruption of Latin for thrown [overboard]). Lagan is really opposite to flotsam, while jetsam is the previous step ... but how many sailors speak Latin ... or Norman French ... or Viking Norse?

Big Tim: I'll see if I can find the book ... but it was one of my wife's - and many years back ... and Patricia is not one for holding onto old books!

Regards,

Bob Bolton