Nautical Gobbily Gook

Subject: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 12:48 PM

Songwriters are not the only ones who compose nonesense lines about sailing vessels. I was amused the other day to come across this line in a recent publication (SIGNALS) of the Australia National Maritime Museum:

Tuesdays in November - Life aboard a Tall Ship

Let's unfurl the masts and set sail on a frolicking adventure on the high seas...(emphasis added)

Barnacle Bill would be most amused.

I would welcome more examples. Maybe we can come up with a new sea song!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, tapping his compass rose on the rail

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: kendall
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 12:49 PM

Listen to Oscar Brand. Plenty of material there.

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 12:50 PM

"Avast Behind!!!"

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 12:53 PM

An unfurled mast would be quite something to see... ;-)

Kind of like an unfrocked bishop.

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 01:03 PM

As the captain said to the mate:

"It's looking like dirty weather, shall we wind the larboard watch?"

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 02:00 PM

There's a pub in Middle Street in Deal, once frequented by Charles Hawtry and friends, that was known among Deal's boatmen as "The Hard Astern".

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Hovering Bob
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 02:04 PM

Ask the Admiral about unfurling the anchor!
BobH

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 02:48 PM

Related to the "taboo subject" thread, are there any nautical songs about bonds of bottomry?

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 03:12 PM

And are there binnacle bats in Bantry Bay?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 03:45 PM

Well,nautical pedants might wonder what happened to the expression "Gobbledy Gook".

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 03:57 PM

The canal 'shanty', The Manchester Canal, has plenty. I think Brian Peters does a version. My favourite line -

The captains brow it darkened for he saw a storm a' brewin'
and the engineer reported that the horse it wanted shoein'.

Followed by

We were east nor'east of Bailey Bridge, just south of Salford Station.

I think it could be adapted for any inland waterway.

Cheers

D.

PS - Tune = 'The Girl I left behind me'

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 04:02 PM

Pedant Alert

Gobble-DEE-Gook

~S~

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 05:28 PM

My apologies for mispelling this slang term (from Wikipedia website):

Gobbledygook or gobbledegook (sometimes shortened to gobbledegoo) is an English term used to describe nonsensical language, sound that resembles language but has no meaning, or unintelligible encrypted text. It is also used to refer to official, professional or pretentious language. In this meaning gobbledygook is at best a hurdle of communication and at worst means of imposing power.

The term was coined on March 30, 1944 by Maury Maverick, chairman of the United States Smaller War Plants Corporation. In a memo banning "gobbledygook language", he wrote "anyone using the words activation or implementation will be shot".[1] Maverick later used the word in the New York Times Magazine on May 21, 1944 as part of a further complaint against the obscure language used by his colleagues. His inspiration, he said, was the turkey, "always gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity. At the end of his gobble, there was a sort of gook."

One should always be open to further enlightenment. Thanks!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 06:04 PM

To unfurl a mast would be to turn it into veneer by rotating it against a knife whose edge is in the same plane as the mast.
Most veneers are cut in this way, particularly the cheaper ones.

Colyn.

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: TheSnail
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 07:16 PM

The crow's nest fell and killed the crow
The starboard watch was two hours slow
But the Captain sang fello-de-oh-doh
And he played his ukulele as the ship went down.

From THE WRECK OF THE NANCY LEE

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: kendall
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 08:50 PM

I posted to this thread and it did not come up. As the man said when his horse died, "Odd, he never did that before."

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 09:45 PM

Colyn-

Perhaps the mast in question is one of the new state of the art masts that actually furls the sail within it?

The Snail-

In addition to the tragedy of the crow's nest, there's the sad state of affairs at the cathead, where the litter box hasn't been changed for weeks!

Kendall-

So true!

Keep it going! Amos still hasn't found this thread.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 09:53 PM

Self-furling sail X=X self-furling mast

Barry

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Greg B
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 10:12 PM

And let's not forget...

The Captain's Shanty
Elliot Crawford Finch

I've been a sailor since my birth
YO HO HO AND A RUDDY BUM BUM
Left my home, for all it's worth
YO HO HO AND A RUDDY BUM BUM

CHORUS
Lime, scurvy, ambergris and marmalade
Hoist the petard and we'll haul away the bully boys
Lime, scurvy, ambergris and blubber, we're
Bound for Cincinnati

Fifteen years and we haven't seen a shore leave
Heave! Heave!

Sight the bowsprit, down the grog
Carve the turkey in the log
Come the day she's out of port
Keel the bosun o'er the thwart

Through a fluke the spout did wail
And that's the end of my scrimshaw tale

...which was well-rendered by Bob Walser at Mystic a few years
back, and is on the CD of the Festival as a result.

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 10:45 PM

Thanks, Greg! That one is certainly a classic, along with "A Sailor's Tale."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 11:04 PM

With a barnacle under the binnacle
And a bottle of pop on the poop;
And the odor of salmon prevails in the cabin
We sail on our sloppy old sloop.

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 01:36 AM

And now, my dearios, it's time for a rollicking sea-shanty,

So hoist your artifacts, keelhaul your dandoes, nurk your throbbers,

and away we go.....Rambling Syd Rumpo.

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 03:35 AM

Midships awheel! Hoist the rudder!

In the 1930s my Uncle Bernard joined the navy. On his first home leave, he was intensely irritated that his mother had been boasting to the neighbours about how beautifully he danced the sailor's hornpipe.

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Bert
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 03:37 AM

Talking of Rambling Syd Rumpo, Kenneth Williams was a master at 'sound that resembles language but has no meaning'. I remember seeing him on an interview once, where he started talking gobbledogook in English and then was suddenly talking in Welsh then Indian. He went on through several more languages and you never did understand a single word he said - but you knew every language he was talking in. Bloody brilliant!!!

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 06:16 AM

Weigh the anchor ? they are mostly very heavy or they wouldn't sink.

eric

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 07:03 AM

Vast girth, you curvy leopards! Bilge the tail swallow and frizzle the marmaduke handsome, or bigotry down to the fells with ye! Bring bung the furbelows to Harvard, two pints ablative, and smartly, too!! There, now we'll hate the whether glues on that binnacle-monger!! Nothing off!! This is no sale for a land scupper!!

A

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 10:09 AM

Well stow my starboard testacle.

eric

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: kendall
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 10:45 AM

From the pen of my good friend, Jim Stewart in New Brunswick.


The Ballad of the Simple Sailor

Now I am just a country boy, I'd never been to sea
But my uncle was a captain and a job he gave to me
I signed on board a great big boat and learned the trade so fast
That my uncle said that my first trip just might well be my last

Chorus:
    And it's ...
    Haul on the jibban jabban, lay aloft the lee
    Unfurl the capstan bilge and pump the gallants free
    I never once imagined just how easy this could be
    And I'm off to see the world and be a sailor

My uncle said "it's time to sail, we'll weigh the anchor son"
I looked at it and looked at him and guessed: "about a ton"
I went and asked some other man what might our cargo be
He told me it was guano, but it smelled like shit to me

We then proceeded to the front, and "bow" my uncle said
So I leaned forward from the waist and lowered down my head
I knew that he was pleased with me, how quickly I could learn
I said he shouldn't worry and he shouldn't look so stern

My uncle pointed out a man and said he was his mate
A great big ugly hairy beast, he didn't look so great
I didn't strike me natural that such a thing could be
But maybe he'll look better when we're six months out at sea

Now I am quite a learned man and I'm nobody's dope
But he called this thing a halyard when I knew it was a rope
He showed to me a gadget, "it's a sextant boy," said he
I told him all that dirty talk would get nowhere with me

My uncle's eyes filled up with tears, I knew it came from pride
'Cause he gave me my own boat to sail and set me o'er the side
I'm just so full of knowledge I don't even need a crew
My family will be thrilled with me cause I'm a captain too

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 11:34 AM

Spendid, simply splendid! Let's haul in another trawl!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: eddie1
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 11:56 AM

For many years I was a pirate on the Union Canal but I retired when I became so frustrated at making people walk the plank only to see them run off along the towpath.

Eddie

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Les from Hull
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 12:10 PM

'Up funnel, down screw!' would sound pretty unusual these days.

Subject: RE: Nautical Gobbily Gook
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 02:29 PM

They stirred their stumps, they spiked the pumps,
They spliced the mizzen brace;
Aloft and alow they worked, but, oh!
The water gained apace...

They bored a hole beneath her line
To let the water out,
But more and more with an awful roar,
The water in did spout...

Cheerily,
Charley Noble