Digital Extra

How do I know that Popeye is Italian? Simple -- he goes around hollering "Avast!"

Like many of the inscrutable words and phrases used by seamen, avast -- which essentially means "halt" -- has its origin in a language other than English.

Reference books suggest that "avast" is a scion of the Italian "basta" -- "enough."

Anyway, basta about Popeye; the real point of today's exercise is to examine the mysterious palaver of those who go down to the sea in ships, including the players in our recent oil spill.

An example: As trouble brewed on the stricken tug Scandia, the Coast Guard broadcast a standard "listen-up" phrase to mariners, warning them to keep an ear on their radios.

Using the Coast Guard spelling as our source, the Journal-Bulletin later rendered the alert as, "Ponn-Ponn, Ponn-Ponn."

This mystified some readers -- including me. Even the Coasties claimed no knowledge of where the phrase originated. And, my research was thrown off because the Coast Guard apparently misspelled the term in a conversation with our reporter.

When I called long-time sailor John Gibson of South Kingstown, he averred that the word is not "Ponn," but its French homophone "Pan," meaning "slap."

In French, when you slap someone (perhaps to get his attention?) you are said to "pan-pan" him, according to my Larousse dictionary.

Therefore, until someone says otherwise, I declare that this is why the Coast Guard invokes "Pan-Pan" to warn of a mayday possibly in the making.

Now, whence mayday?

French again. It comes from m'aidez -- help me.

Our linguistic cruise now veers regrettably from the sublime to the scatalogical: You are burning to know, I'm sure, why sailors call the elevated rear portion of a ship the "poop deck."

Exhausting research nets this etymological flotsam: The Latin word for stern just happens to be, "puppis."

The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, a copy of which is berthed at URI's Pell marine library, serves up an example -- and I swear this quote is accurate -- of how the "P-word" may be employed:

"A ship is pooped, or pooping, when a heavy sea breaks over her stern."

Basta! Basta!

Here are some other vital facts about life on the sea:

A British sailor is called a "limey" because the Royal Navy required limes aboard ship to discourage scurvy.

The right side of a ship is called the starboard because in ancient times, before rudders were invented, the steering oar, or "steerboard," projected from the right side.

The left side is called "port" because on ships of old the loading ports were on the left side.

Pop(eye) quiz: When was a sailor put "between the devil and the deep blue sea?"

Answer: When he crawled between the hull and its adjacent planking to caulk the "devil" -- a seam running along the wood. The position left only the hull boards between him and the water; he was literally between the devil and Davy Jones.

Why is the forecastle, or fo'c'sle, called that?

In ancient times the forward deck contained a structure, or "castle" from which a ship's archers attacked enemy vessels.

This is all fascinating stuff, so if you have other maritime phrases with unusual origins or applications, send them along.

I'd list more myself, but I'm going to sign off because after all this research, I have to admit that -- as Mark Antony used to say after each voyage down the Nile with Cleopatra -- I'm pooped.

Gerry Goldstein is the Journal-Bulletin's regional editor for South County.