Boating and Travel Books

The Sailor’s Word Book
By Admiral W.H. Smyth
Distributed by Sterling Publishing
Softcover, 744 pages

What does Larboard mean? If a sailor is “lasking along”, what is he doing? And what is a poop lantern? These are some of the more than 14,000 naval and quirky words and phrases collected in this dictionary of naval and nautical terms, penned by Admiral William Henry Smyth (1788-1865) and first published in 1867 shortly after his death. Smyth began working on the dictionary in 1858 at age 70, after spending most of his career with the British Navy surveying the Mediterranean. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and its president from 1849-51. The author asks in the book’s foreword: “What’s in a word? He answers: A meaning. He also asks: what’s a word in? And answers: A dictionary. There are historical and rare words, obsolete and common words.

The language of the sea, be it seamanship, navigation, meteorology, naval architecture or ship construction, is spelled in this voluminous alphabetical listing. This is ideal for the experienced sailor or the arm-chair skipper. On the meaning of the words mentioned earlier, Larboard is an earlier name for the port side of the boat, which was changed because it sounded too close to starboard. Lask means to “go large” or to sail away with a quartering wind. And the poop lantern is a light carried by admirals to denote the flag ship at night. For more details, visit http://www.anovabooks.com

By: Greg McDowell