The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #8686 Message #2057334
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
20-May-07 - 09:54 PM
Thread Name: What does blow the man down mean?
Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean?
I would guess that any speaking tubes would have run from the captain's quarters to the galley.
The earliest reference to a speaking tube (modern sense) found in the Oxford English Dictionary is to one being used in a London restaurant in 1833. I wonder how easily a voice through a tube on shipboard would be heard when the ship is underway.
Make that a couple (or more) single malts and I just might believe either of the combatants here (heavyweights?) but I (flyweight) think both are wrong.
And they call the wind ...
Has anyone here a copy of James Runciman? Or Clarke Russell, "Sailors' Language" ?