Port out, starboard home
by Michael Quinion · first published 2004
3mentions
1recommended by
3HN commenters
2019–2020first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
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"Port Out, Starboard Home" by Michael Quinion is a nice book about 'folk etymologies' that covers these and many more. He gives the real origin where it's known.
on “Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)” ↗…that used to run in papers and alt weeklies, used to perennially comment that acronyms in English were quite rare until roughly WW1-WW2, and as such etymologies involving them ("to insure promptness", "port out starboard home", etc.) are virtually always false. More to the point, TFA lays out various evidence why this particular theory is unlikely.
on “Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From? (2018)” ↗One of those lemmata casts doubt on the veracity of "Port Out, Starboard Home." I also enjoyed the dual meanings of pot-walloper, similar to "cutting coupons" shifting semantics at opposite ends of the NRS social grades.
on “Cockney Rhyming Slang History” ↗