References
- It is possible that this notice has been removed since my visit
- This notice is not very happily worded and contains a number of errors, which, however, are outside the present note
- 1890 . Old Sea Wings, Ways and Words in the days of Oak and Hemp. By R. C. Leslie
- 1930 . The Origins of some Naval Terms and Customs.
- 1930 . Naval Customs and Traditions.
- 1930 . A few Naval Customs, Expressions, Traditions and Superstitions.
- 1794 . The Sailor's Word Book by the late Admiral W. H. Smyth. 1867. David Steel in The Elements and Practice of Rigging and Seamanship (gives a similar account, but not quite so clear
- The Seamans' Dictionary, c. , 1618 Mainwaring gives nippers as ‘small ropes (about a fathom and a half or two fathom long)’. Falconer enlarges on this and describes them ‘as certain pieces of flat, braided, cordage….These nippers are usually six or eight feet in length according to the size of the cable, and five or six of them are commonly fastened about the cable and voyal at once’. Six or eight feet, however, would have been too short to nip a 24 in. cable and 16 in. messenger in the manner described above, and Mainwaring's ‘two fathom’ would be a minimum length in such a case., Mainwaring, Vol. II. p. 191; N.R.S. Vol. LVI, 1922; Universal Dictionary of the Marine, W. Falconer, 1769
- The persons employed to bind the nippers about the cable and voyal, are called nipper-men. Ibid. See also J. J. Moore. British Mariners Vocabulary or Universal Dictionary, 1801; and William Burney, p. 320. 1815
- 1894 . Seamanship 250 – 1 . Alston's Art. 448, 1893 edition. Seamanship Manual for Boys' Training Ships
- Authorities differ as to the procedure at this point. Falconer and Burney say ‘the nipper men are assisted in this office by the boys of the ship, who always supply them with nippers and receive the ends of those which are fastened, to walk aft with them, and take them off at the proper place, in order to return them to the nipper men’. But if this was the practice in early days it must have been found unsatisfactory for all later authorities follow Admiral Smyth, ‘a foretopman holds the end until it reaches the fore hatchway, when a maintopman takes it up, and at the main hatchway it is taken off, a boy carrying it forward ready coiled for further use’ (Smyth, p. 498)
- Sailor's Word Book 497
- 1908 . The Oxford English Dictionary (M-N.),. Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
- Dain , A. 1943 . Naumachica 27 Paris
- Dain , A. 80 op. cit. p., cf. p. 69
- Some of the more important passages of the Περì θαλασσoμαχíας are paraphrased in my forthcoming paper on naval tactics presented to the Eighth International Congress of Byzantine Studies
- Cf. Liddell and Scott, s.vv.
- De caerimoniis 655 Konst. Porph., Bonn
- Cf. Liddell and Scott and Du Cange, s.v.
- I show that Russian ships were called μoνóζυα not because they were hollowed out of single trees but because the strakes were formed of single planks running from bow to stern as in the so-called Nydam and Utrecht ships
- MPG This is A far cry from the ‘si tantum hastas defigant’ of Lamius (CVII, c. 1002). There is of course debate among philologists as to whether the roots ‘bord’ and ‘borde’ themselves derive from a common root. Certainly they were confused at a very early date, and I feel that a common root is not so fantastic as might have appeared a century ago. The question, however, is one that merits discussion at greater length