Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter'

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 May 04 - 11:53 PM

Ahhh...Chanty...I too....once carried up to four-dozen-different-personae......upon my MC-back....

Sincerely,

Gagroyle

If only to carry on conversation with someone, anyone....other than myself.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: GUEST,Chanteyranger
Date: 29 May 04 - 02:15 PM

"Gagroyle." We often wish. *BG*

Sorry, Garg, but I don't follow your point.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 May 04 - 06:27 PM

I always imagined the "Cosher Bailey" line as implying "everything I see reminds me of how randy I am". Even a ship.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Peace
Date: 30 May 04 - 06:20 PM

Re "meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter". It means you are busted from seaman, first class.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 30 May 04 - 07:15 PM

Kissing the gunners daughter was a punishment often reserved for Midshipmen. Midshipmen were the lowest level of commissioned rank in the navy and as such they could not be flogged, but young midshipmen could be beaten with a cane across the backside.

Flogging was a far more severe punishment often used in the Navy but less so in the merchant navy. Generally it was reseved for members of the lower deck not officers.

Certainly in the RN at the time of Nelson sailors had to make their own cat, which after punishment was ditched. This was becuase the cat's tails would be bloodied and often carried lumps of flesh from the back of the person being punished.

In the RN the person to be flogged was triced up to a grating which was usually against the ships side on the upper deck.

The original line was 'Give him a taste of the captains daughter' a reference to the cat. Which makes more sense than 'Put him in bed with the captains daughter'.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 27 Jun 05 - 04:22 PM

In the Israeli Naval Museum in Haifa, there is a wicked lash with what seems to be closer to 32 than 9 tails. That's a Captain's Daughter if anything is. The sobering thought is that the lash was on board an Egyptian vessel taken in the late 1950s.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: GUEST,tony
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 08:44 AM

You would have been very hard pressed, indeed, to seek a romantic association with some of the captain's daughters I met in the Merchant Navy. I can only assume that line describes a severe form of punishment in itself and doesn't stand for anything else.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: alanabit
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 09:01 AM

I believe Shanghaiceltic is very close. "Kissing the gunner's daughter" referred to the practice of tying the lad to the cannon, so that he could receive his beating. It might have looked a bit as if the lad were trying to make love to the cannon, which gave rise to the grim humour (not at all uncommon in the navy).
I can try to find a URL to a site with more on this subject later on.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 09:41 AM

I was wrong in my earlier post about midshipmen and the cat, they could not be flogged, only beaten. There was a subtle difference in the RN. Flogging implied the use of the cat on a rating who was triced up on a grating, whereas a middy (also known as a 'snotty') could be beaten with a cane whilst lying over a gun.

Another term associated more in the USN than the RN today is 'son of a gun'.

In the RN women were often carried on board but not listed on the ships muster. This was at the captains discretion. The responsibility for feeding them and any offspring was down to the particular listed man. Therefore in many cases the women were the spouses of petty officers, bosuns, mates, warrant officers or commissioned officers. However this was not always so and if the spouse was married to a lower deck rating then she shared his mess space often sleeping on the deck between guns. If a child was concieved then it would be a 'son of a gun' even if the child was female.

What did these women do when the ship was in action? Often they would help the ships surgeon acting as unpaid nurses and loblolly boys.

Sorry about the drift.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Les from Hull
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 11:59 AM

The women who went to sea (as opposed to the 'wives' who visited when the ship was in port) were the wives of the 'standing officers' petty officers who were appointed to the ship permanently - the bosun, the gunner and the carpenter. Carrying other women was illegal (but not unknown).

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: alanabit
Date: 01 Jul 05 - 01:48 PM

Here's the URL I promised Shanghaiceltic. I got it from another site. (I am an Old Boy of the Royal Hospital School, Holbrook, which has strong links to the RN).
http://www.corpun.com/kiss1.htm

I rather suspect that the expression actually was "Kissing the gunner's daughter" and that folk memory transformed it into the phrase, which is the title of this thread.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 05:54 PM

THe cpatains daughter is another name for the cat o' nine tales.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 09:26 AM

Why should anyone assume that such a straightforward statement must have a completely different and obscure hidden meaning?

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: kendall
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 12:08 PM

I still say it is simply a bawdy line in the chanty. Another example of free speech is the line:
The Captain's daughter Mabel though young was and fresh and able,To fornicate with the second Mate upon the chart room table.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: kendall
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 12:10 PM

And, as far as I know, the "Cat" was kept in the Bos'ns locker.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Dead Horse
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 12:51 PM

Nothing whatever of a sexual nature in it.
It refers to a method of punishment involving a sound thrashing.
May have originally been a Bosuns Daughter,or even Gunners Daughter, but owing to passage of time and having passed through the hands of many folkies, has been promoted to command rank :-)
I am sure that I have heard Baggywrinkle singing Hob Y Deri Dando the line "I wish I was in Beddw with the captains daughter" which is in keeping with the Welsh genius for turning the meaning of a phrase for comical effect.
Where is Crane Driver when you need him, eh?

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 01:33 PM

Lighter:

You asked, "Why use an "obscure hidden meaning" instead of the literal reading of the words?"

First: The song is comic, about tongue in cheek punishments for the erring sailor.

Second:
In a real-life naval situation, the captain might not even have a daughter. If he did, she probably would not be aboard. If he did and she was, the drunken sailor might, on the surface, see putting him to bed with a female (ANY female) as a reward rather than a punishment for his drunkenness. Alternatively, the captain in that case would surely be enraged, and not only the drunken sailor but those who instigated putting him in her bed would be severely punished. All of which would be in conflict with the spirit of song, as in the first commend.

Third:
As a parallel to "kissing the gunner's daughter", which is traditionally known to have the "obscure, hidden meaning" of being flogged with the cat while bound to one of the big guns.

q.e.d. Which should have been obvious.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Paul Burke
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 01:36 PM

OK, so all expressions used in blues are sexual, and no sexual reference in a shanty is what it seems. That's clear, these sailors were a sheltered lot. Where the hell's Beddw? The nearest Google maps will give me is Beddwgan, a farmhouse near Pentraeth, the right sort of area for a song that mentions Nefyn, but about 3 miles inland and not really the sort of place where a sailor would want to go to get flogged. Maybe a Welsh speaker will tell us what such a placename could mean- W's grave perhaps.

You'll be telling us next that their desire for a pie dish was actually a wish to be keelhauled and shot on the quarterdeck.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 01:58 PM

Believe what you wish.

Anyway, the even more recent following verse, "Have you *seen* the captain's daughter?" suggests that the real daughter might be punishment enough.

If punishment is what it's all about.

Which it isn't.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 02:11 PM

BTW, nobody has produced even a claim from any shanty collector or sailor-author that "in bed with the captain's daughter" had any secret meaning at all.

It's fascinating to see people insist that what's said in plain words makes more sense as code for something else.

(Assuming that's what I mean.)

In A Study in Scarlet, Watson "keeps a bull pup." Since no dog is ever mentioned again, readers have asserted confidently that it means something else: for example, that Watson has a bad temper, or carries a gun, or something equally unexpected.

The obvious interpretation, that he owns a dog (which Conan Doyle later forgot about) is ignored.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 04:19 AM

It's genuinely crazy to see topics and people writing on the internet from so longer ago. While I can almost guarantee I will never return to the comment I'm about to post (if it even works) and that fact that none of the original people to post will see this- it's still so fascinating to see.

Anyway, my belief of what it meant was already answered dozens of times, it's to be lashed until you're unconscious. Although you could have the direct meaning, I don't see it fitting the song as well.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 09:49 AM

I think most agree it was to do with a serious flogging; all the other verses are punishments of varying severity, so it makes no sense otherwise, unless the daughter was particularly unappealing.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 07:40 PM

In another Mudcat thread a strong (I think) argument was developed that the singer Oscar Brand developed "the captain's daughter" and other hootenanny verses on his 1960 album.

Some years back I updated the Wikipedia page for this song by inserting several historical points about this song, especially distinguishing its form "as a shanty" and "as a popular song."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_Sailor

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter'
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 19 - 03:32 PM

Put him in bed with the Captain's Daughter:

up to 100 Lashings with a cat o' nine tails (sometimes referred to as the Captains daughter.
Then a bucket of sea water in thrown into the wound (mostly to work as antiseptic but also for pain)
Put to bed in a hammock which is nice and scratchy. You are then sown into it.

As you have an open wound and as you have salt in the wound and as you are against a scratchy material it will itch, and you will scratch opening up the wound even more making it itch more ect.

Kissing the Gunners Daughter:

Typically given to the young midshipman (officers in training).

Stretched out over a gun with arms tied so there lips are against the gun. Trousers pulled down and they receive 10 of the best with a birch or cane.

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter'
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Mar 20 - 02:38 PM

What about Shaved his belly with a rusty razor??

Subject: RE: Help: meaning of 'in bed w/ captain's daughter'
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 08:46 AM

I was told that the captain's daughter was either a smaller cat o ninetales whip or something similar that the captain would use when a sailor got to drunk to do their job and the name was kind of a way to screw with said drunken sailor, "how did captain's daughter treat you last night?"