Three Sheets to the Wind

Three Sheets to the Wind is an illustrated reference guide to the nautical origins of everyday expressions. The book, by editor and avid sailor Cynthia Barrett ’78, is organized alphabetically “from A to Sea.”

Here are three of our favorite entries.

Keep Your Shirt On

Masters of psychological warfare, Vikings often tore off their shirts of mail in the heat of battle. They went berserk, meaning “bare sark.” “Sark” is Norse for shirt. The sight of these fierce, half-naked warriors was terrifying to their adversaries. Nowadays, to keep your shirt on means to stay calm and in control.

Let the Cat Out of the Bag

A whip composed of nine pieces of cord with three knots at the striking end, the cat-o’-nine-tails was one of the authorized instruments of punishment in the British Navy until 1881. It was kept in a cloth bag. A sailor who reported the misdeeds of another let the cat out of the bag.

Son of a Gun

Some British warships allowed women on board, with obvious consequences. Since sailors had no privacy below deck, babies were often conceived and delivered in the relatively secluded spaces between the ship’s guns. When paternity was unknown, the child was entered in the ship’s log as “son of a gun.”

THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND
By Cynthia Barrett ’78
Lyons Press; May 2019

Part of the Smith Women Create column in the Summer 2019 issue of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly. See also “Fun with Puns” and “Famous Last Words.”