Like many foreign terms that have crept into our nautical lingo, "bokoo" is the inevitable product of generations of American seamen meeting peoples of other nations and adopting bokoo phrases from their languages for everyday shipboard use.īully boys, a term prominent in Navy chanties and poems, means in its strictest sense, "beef eating sailors." Sailors of the Colonial Navy had a daily menu of an amazingly elastic substance called bully beef, actually beef jerky. The picturesque sound of the word "bokoo" may cause one to wonder how it came to mean "many" or "a lot."Īctually, bokoo is a legitimate French word, "beaucoup," meaning "very many." Americanization changed the spelling and pronunciation but the meaning remains unchanged. Often an old salt will boast that he has had bokoo this or has done something bokoo times during his seafaring years. So essential was this signaling device to the well-being of the ship, that it became a badge of office and honor in the British and American Navy of the sailing ships. On the ancient row-galleys, the boatswain used his pipe to "call the stroke." Later because its shrill tune could be heard above most of the activity on board, it was used to signal various happenings such as knock-off and the boarding of officials. This pipe, which is the emblem of the boatswain and his mates, has an ancient and interesting history. No self-respecting boatswain's mate would dare admit he couldn't blow his pipe in a manner above reproach. Until 1949, a boatswain's mate 3rd class in the Navy was called a cockswain. The suffix "swain" means keeper, thus the keepers of the boat, cock and skiff were called boatswain, cockswain and skiffswain respectively. The skiff was a lightweight all-purpose vessel. The cock boat was a very small rowboat used as a ship's tender. The boat - or gig - was usually used by the captain to go ashore and was the larger of the three. The landlubbing phrases "stick to the bitter end" and "faithful to the bitter end" are derivations of the nautical term and refer to anyone who insists on adhering to a course of action without regard to consequences.īOATSWAIN, COCKSWAIN (OR COXSWAIN), SKIFFSWAINĪs required by 17th century law, British ships-of-war carried three smaller boats - the boat, the cock boat, and the skiff. Nautical usage has somewhat expanded the original definition in that today the end of any line, secured to bitts or not, is called a bitter end. Thus, the last of the line secured to the bitts is known as the bitter end. After long practice, it came to be called binnacle list.Īs any able-bodied seaman can tell you, a turn of a line around a bitt, those wooden or iron posts sticking through a ship's deck, is called a bitter. The term binnacle list, in lieu of sick list, originated years ago when ships' corpsmen used to place a list of the sick on the binnacle each morning to inform the captain about the crew's health. Their confusion is understandable.īinnacle is defined as the stand or housing for the ship's compass located on the bridge.
Many novice sailors, confusing the words "binnacle" and barnacle, have wondered what their illnesses had to do with crusty growths found on the hull of a ship. Bamboozle meant to deceive a passing vessel as to your ship's origin or nationality by flying an ensign other than your own - a common practice of pirates. The word was used in the days of sail, also, but the intent was not hilarity. In today's Navy when you intentionally deceive someone, usually as a joke, you are said to have bamboozled them. A Moorish chief was an "emir," and the chief of all chiefs was an "emir-al." Our English word is derived directly from the Moorish. An admiral is the senior ranking flag officer in the US Navy, but his title comes from the name given the senior ranking officer in the Moorish army of many years ago.
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