Overview

Origins of Sea Terms differs from existing glossaries and dictionaries. It emphasizes word roots and earliest meanings, making it an indispensable companion to standard maritime dictionaries. The author steers his way through a potentially dry subject with a witty flair that will please as well as inform. The mariner's language is almost universal in its usage and its sources. An idle curiosity about the derivation of the term ""peajacket"" led John G. Rogers to devour ancient and modern texts in his six-year search for the origins of sea terms. While light-hearted in its presentation, Origins of Sea Terms is serious in its intent. It contains 1,248 entries pertaining to life onboard ship, hulls and rigging, shiphandling, sea and weather conditions, and naval and technical terms. Origins of Sea Terms is volume XI in Mystic Seaport's American Maritime Library.

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John G. Rogers was indoctrinated in the correct use of sea language as a boy sailing with his father, brother, and friends at Nonquitt on Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. As a young sailor he graduated from Herreshoff 121/2s to cruising yachts, including crew experience on an Alden schooner. After leaving Harvard College in 1936 he got his sea legs in six Matson Line ships in the Pacific. During World War II he served in the Pacific aboard the destroyer escort Stadtfeld, logging 100,000 miles and returning as a lieutenant commander. After the war he became a stockbroker in San Francisco with E. F. Hutton and Company, and pursued his interest in yachts and small boats with a Hinckley Owens cutter and with the tugboat Beaver, kept in Sausalito as a weekend retreat. Before his death in 1992 John Rogers served as trustee of the National Maritime Museum Association and as curator of the St. Francis Yacht Club.

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