Articles: The Navy Had Its Own Language

Gimme Yer Gash, and a Tickler Too!

WWII veterans meet in London, perhaps to share and collect stories about

RCNVR and Combined Ops. Art Bailey still went by 'Gash', a Navy term.

Photo as found in Combined Operations by Londoner Clayton Marks

Introduction:

Only once in a rare while does a story, photo, or news piece cross my path that draws attention to the notion that the armed forces had a lot of terms - names for people, places and things - that only a member or an insider would know.  

Recently I reread a piece by Scott Young that reveals some of the differences in terms amongst the forces (chiefly Navy and Air Force) and I present it here, along with a few other items that are linked to the Navy, home to more wonky names for things than one could shake a stick at.

Photo as found in The Winnipeg Tribune, July 1943.

Full article as found in The Winnipeg Tribune, July 14, 1943

Fifty years after Young's article appeared, five veterans of RCNVR and Combined Ops got together to share memories (see top photo) and it was not long before Mr. C. Marks self-published a rare book entitled Combined Operations that presented a good number of stories (by a number of Canadian members of Comb. Ops.) about their unique role and adventures during WWII. A year or two later two more volumes appeared,  St. Nazaire to Singapore: The Canadian Amphibious War 1941 - 1945, the handiwork of David Lewis (in top photo), his wife Catherine and Len Birkenes, based on yet more stories offered by veterans. 

The book by C. Marks contains the following re Navy terms:

NAVAL LANGUAGE

Adrift - anything loose, late
Afters - dessert
Aft or abaft - behind or astern
Ashore - to go ashore from ship or leave from Barracks
Ahoy - precedes the name in greeting
All in the wind - in a flurry, excited
Ashcan - depth charge
Belly-robbers - V.A.'s (Victualling Assistants)
Bunting tosser - Signalman
Blast or bottle - a bawling out
Bergoo - porridge
Beach - land (same as ashore)
Bow wave - "green" Seamen who spin salty dips
Buttoned up - finished
Button your flap - be quiet
Brig - cells
Bristol fashion - ship-shape
Bucko - bully
Blue Nose - Nova Scotian
Buzz - rumour
Blow the gaff - to tell a secret or tell on someone
Blow your top - lose your temper
Bent on a splice - determined to get married
Board in the smoke - take advantage of someone
Bible - Holy stone - a small piece is called "Prayer Book"
Bound - outward or homeward
Buffer - Boatswain's mate
Bone Butcher - M.O. (Medical Officer)
Bash - chum
Cable - "slipped his cable", died
Cut your painter - leave in a hurry
Cackle - talk
Chippy - carpenter
Cheating the devil - using slang instead of swearing
Catch a crab - to misstroke with an oar
Chokey - cells
Cutting a feather - moving rapidly through the water
Chicago or Chinese Piano - multiple pom-poms
Chop chop - make haste
Captain of heads - anyone detailed off to clean wash-place or toilets
Crusher - R.P.O.
Clinker rats - Stokers
Chock-a-block - full up
Duff - steam pudding (dessert)
Dhobi - laundry
Drink or ditch - the sea   
Devil to pay - devil to pay and no tar hot
Drip - to complain
Devil's smiles - gleams of sunshine in stormy weather
Devil's tablecloth - fleecy white clouds
Davy Jones - spirit of the sea, Davy Jones' locker, the bottom of the sea
Dickie - a false white front worn in a matelot's uniform
Dummy up - keep quiet
"Dusty" - nickname for anyone named Miller
Eyes of her - forward part of the ship (hawse-pipes)
Eye of wind -  the point from which the wind is coming
Flaked out - asleep
Fish - tinfish, torpedo
Filled in - beaten up
Grog - watered rum
Glory-hole - Steward's quarters
Gannet - a greedy chap 
Grim - not good
Goodo - opposite to grim
Gravel - sugar
Get your head down - to go to sleep
Get cracking - get going 
Gash - extra
Give over - cease doing that
Hard up in the clinches - in a tight spot 
Half seas over - half drunk 
Holding on the slack - lazy
Hot coppers - the taste in the mouth the "morning after"
Holiday - a space missed when washing paint work or when painting
Irish mail - potatoes
Irish pennants - loose ends of rope, etc. which tend to make a ship or boat untidy
Jeep - Members of R.C.N.V.R. (wrongly used as new entries)
Jimmie the One - Executive Officer
Jaunty - Master-at-arms
Juicers - members of R.N.
Juicerland - England
Jack or Johnnie - sailor
Jolly - marine
Jeep-string - lanyard
Killick - Leading Seaman (also called a hookie or a creeper)
Kie - cocoa
Knobby - anyone whose name is Clark
Long ship - a ship that is a long time between drinks
Landsman - a chap who is at sea for the first time
Lubber - a dumb fellow
Like Tiffie's tea - weak
Lash out and fill your boots - help yourself
Lofty - nickname for any tall person
Land Lubber - anyone who has never been to sea
Drown the Miller - put too much water in grog
Matelot - seaman
Mick - hammock
Make & Mend - half-holiday (in contradistinction from stand-off, at which time no shore leave is allowed), do your own thing
Main yard men - men on sick list
News - "Did you hear the news", an expression used when calling the Watchman
Natter - idle chatter
Number one - Jimmie the one
Neaters - straight rum
On the high ropes - proud, puffed up
Oar - don't shove your oar in, don't meddle or interfere
Old Man - Captain 
Oileys - oilskins
Out or down - calling the Watchmen (get out or down you come)
"Oppo" - a close friend (opposite number)
Pitch or Spin a yarn or dip - a one-sided conversation
Pongoes - Soldiers
Pile up - to run aground
Peggy - one who keeps a section clean, such as mess-deck Peggy
Pusser - service style, pure rum
Pier-head jump - joining ship at the last minute
Popple - when a sea is choppy it is a poppling sea or has a popple on
Prick for a soft plank - to look out for a soft berth
Party - girl
Pride of morning - the mist seen first thing in the morning
Paddy's hurricane - dead calm
Plue - tea
Purser's grin - sneer
Pay-Bob - Paymaster
Poultice walloper -  S.B.A. (Sick Berth Attendant, i.e., Royal Navy rating)
Pack it up - quit doing that or quit talking
Pigeon - member of Air Force, a responsibility ("that's your pigeon")
Quid - a lump of tobacco (especially chewing tobacco)
Quack - Medical Officer
"Q"-patch - quarterdeck
Raise the wind - raise some money
Right up and down - when there is no wind at all (dead calm)
Red lead - tomatoes
Red lead and hat tallies - tomatoes and bacon
Rum gagger - one who spins a yarn for a drink
Rabbit - anything made up without a work order (generally for personal use)
Shellback - Sailor
Salt - an old Sailor
Saw bones - M.O. (Medical Officer)
Scoot - get out of the way
Sea fret - same as pride of the morning
Scalyback - stoker
Stow it - keep quiet (stow the gaff)
Sparks - wireless telegrapher
Show a leg - look sharp (used when turning out the crew; male leg only )
Splice the main brace - extra issue of rum
Sun's over the yardarm - invitation to have a drink
Sippers - a sip of rum (2 sippers = 1 tot)
Shot in the locker - money in your pocket
Shake a cloth in the wind - slightly intoxicated
Sling your hook - to leave
Soft plank - easy berth
Scribe - writer on board ship
Strip to the buff - strip to the waist
Sick-bay shackle - safety pin
Slipped his cable - died
Soogee-Moogee - washing paint work
Swallow the anchor - settle on shore
Small stuff - light line
Spliced - married
Ship shape - tidy, etc.
Slops - ready-made, Naval clothing stores
Soul and body lashings - the lashing at the neck and cuffs on an "Oiley"
Stanchion - one who is stationed in a barracks
Sink someone - to ask a question and the person asked cannot answer it
Stripey - a rating with three good conduct stripes
Square away - tidy up everything
Salty dip - tale of an experience at sea
Scrounge - to appropriate
Skylark - kidding around
That'll be the day - term of disbelief
Tiddley - very smart
Tom Pepper - a liar
Top Sawyer - anyone with authority
Touch of the tar brush - dark or part Negro
Turn in - if on the upper deck, to go below; and if below, to go to bed
Ticklers - cigarettes made from issued tobacco
Trick - spell spent at the wheel or on watch, etc.
Tommy gun - Thompson sub-machine gun
Tiffie - S.B.A. (Sick Berth Attendant, i.e., Royal Navy rating)
Winger - chum
Waister - a person who is too old to work anywhere but on the waist of the ship
Whistling Psalms to the taffrail - wasting advice or instruction on anyone
Weather eye - "keep a weather eye open", to be on the alert
Wet - stupid ("that's wet!")
Wiggie - nickname for anyone named Bennett
What ship's that? - What do you mean?
Wet your whistle - have a drink
White caps or White horses - white crests on the waves
Windjammer - sailing ship
What's your tally? - What's your name?
Yaw sighted -  to have a squint
Yarn - to converse

Combined Operations Pages 197 - 201

The article by Scott Young was written at a time when Canadians in Combined Operations were busy manning landing crafts on the eastern shores of Sicily in the hopes of transporting - without delay - all manner of supplies for Montgomery's Eighth Army. One member of RCNVR and Combined Ops, Art Bradfield of Simcoe, Ontario, has a poem (neatly hand-typed) amongst his files entitled "Naval Language", and it is also found in Combined Operations by C. Marks, on the next page following the long list of NAVAL LANGUAGE directly above. 

Verses 1, 2, 12 and 13. From the collection of LS Bradfield

Bradfield's copy is not signed but it is an original, old document and written in the style of many of Bradfield's other poems:

NAVAL LANGUAGE  

The Navy has a Language,

That each of us should know, 

It's really quite peculiar,

Or, at least, I found it so.

The floor is always called "The Deck", 

Upstairs is way "up top", 

The "Bible" is a rubbing stone, 

And a "swab" is just a mop.

A Sailor sleeps in a swinging "mick", 

And never goes to bed,

When he is free to take a rest, 

He just "gets down his head".

He is "adrift" when he is late, 

The kitchen is the "Galley", 

And they always use a "Bos'un's pipe", 

When they want the lads to rally.

One Officer is the "Number One", 

Another one is "Guns", 

The Captain is "The Old Man", 

To all your Naval Sons.

"Night clothing's" not for sleeping in, 

Now does that seem quite right? 

A "salty dip" is the tale he spins, 

When on shore-leave for the night.

The rum he drinks is called a "tot", 

The tea is known as "plue", 

The dessert is known as "afters", 

And porridge is "bergoo".

His collar blue, is called a "jean", 

When drunk, he's "half-seas over", 

A holiday's a "Make and Mend", 

The boys are then in clover.

When things are done the service way,

They're "pusser" so they say. 

And when they "Splice the Main Brace", 

It's a very lucky day.

A depth-charge is an "ash can", 

At least, that's what we're told, 

A bully is a "bucko",

As he struts around so bold.

An Airman is a "Pigeon",

As he flies up in the sky, 

A Soldier is a "Pongo", 

On shore, there, where it's dry.

Each Miller's name is "Dusty",

Each Clark is "Knobbie" too,

Each Bennett's known as "Wiggie", 

To the lads in Navy blue.

When he's on his ship he's then "afloat", 

When on the land "ashore", 

His cigarettes are "ticklers", 

And "gash" means - anymore?

His best suit is his "tiddlies",

His oldest "number threes",

And he calls it "soogee-moogee", 

Washing paintwork on his knees.

"Dhobing" is the washing,

A rope is called "a line", 

A "fish" is a torpedo, 

The "Mess" is where they dine.

These are just a few expressions,

But don't you now agree,

That it's a very funny Language,

Used by the men who go to Sea?

Combined Operations Pages 202 - 203

The website readyayeready.com provides a wealth of information Navy-related, and has a section entitled Jackspeak of the Royal Canadian Navy, and using their alphabetical list one will find hundreds of new 'Navy' words and their meanings. Happy hunting!

Please link to Articles: Five Canadian Sailors make Headlines (4a)

Unattributed Photos GH