The nautical tradition behind some English idioms
“The human element”: What’s happened to the human?
Rock vs. water: Reflections on the sea, life and humanity
The nautical tradition behind some English idioms
The English language is sprinkled with idioms that have a nautical origin. Some people may use them routinely without being aware of the fact. The following are 10 such idiomatic expressions. They illustrate, not only how the shipping world has impacted on everday language, but also how it has helped unify peoples across the English-speaking world.
“The human element”: What’s happened to the human?
The use of the catchphrase “the human element” to refer to seafarers has always bothered me no end. It sounds too cold. It calls to mind the periodic table of elements invented by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. But more important, the term degrades seafarers to the status of mere objects.
Rock vs. water: Reflections on the sea, life and humanity
“I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace,” wrote Joseph Conrad in his 1911 novel, Under Western Eyes. How true! Yet how difficult to achieve. Like the sea waves crashing against the rocks, life is an unceasing struggle: of man vs. nature; of man vs. man; and sometimes, of man vs. himself.
The nautical tradition behind some English idioms
“The human element”: What’s happened to the human?
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