The Language of Sailing - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

The Language of Sailing shows how many of the English and American words in question are derived - often in complex and controversial ways - from other languages. The diction of the sea is a huge, hybrid skein, much traceable as far back as Sanskrit. Seafaring has knitted Europeans together, sometimes in conflict and rivalry, often also in comradeship. Its language embodies this rich history.
Not least of the secrets The Language of Sailing reveals is the number of occasions on which the Oxford English Dictionary - without which no such work as this would be possible - has proved fallible, undecided - sometimes just plain wrong.
This book is not intended simply to entertain sailors and scholars. Anyone interested in the literature of the sea will find here an unusual and suggestive resource. Sly humour stalks its pages. So does an immense amount of practical, up-to-date information.

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