I've become increasingly aware of the C.A.N.O.E. since the first time I stepped aboard a sailboat: the Committee to Ascribe Nautical Origins to Everything. It's inescapable. Here's a running list of examples why:
- All hands
- On deck
- On board
- Three sheets to the wind
- Masthead (journalism)
- Change tack
- Learn the ropes (though we call them lines...)
- Headwinds, tailwinds
- Jury-rigged
- Take the wind out of someone's sails
- A shot across the bow
- In shipshape
- Rats abandoning a sinking ship
- Run a tight ship
- Two ships passing in the night
- In the same boat
- Flotsam and jetsam
- In the doldrums
- Tide over
- Give a wide berth
- Lost its mooring/rudder
- Drifting rudderless
- Take the helm
- Keel over
- Room to swing a cat
- Loose cannon
- Run aground
- Sea change
- Fathom
- Sound out
- Chart a new course
- Right to the bitter end
- Jump ship
- Slush fund
- Lanyard
- Get underway (or, under weigh - disputed)
- Sailing close to the wind (but shouldn't this be "sailing by the lee"?)
- Smooth/Plain sailing
- Mutiny
- Stem the tide
- Rock the boat
- Batten down the hatches
- Becalmed
- (A)head-way
- Leeway
- Flagship
- *-naut (nautēs: sailor)
- Taken aback
- By and large
- Cut and run
- Groggy
- Hand over fist
- Hard and fast
- High and dry
- Chock-a-block
- In the offing
- Land-lubber
- Pipe down
- Above board
- (Flag flying at) Half-mast
- Careen (via Carina)
- Carina (Latin: keel of a ship)
- Lifeline
- Overbearing
- Bear down / up
- Dead in the water
- Dressing down
- Overhaul
- Garbled
- Get a word in edgeways
- Filibuster
- Pooped
- Poop deck
- Turn a blind eye
- I see no ships
- You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours
- Hard up
- Scuttlebutt
- Hail from
- Clean bill of health
- Fall foul of
- The devil to pay, and no pitch hot
- Between the devil and the deep blue sea
- The whole nine yards1. disputed; cf wiki: 'Its origin is unknown and has been described by Yale University librarian Fred R. Shapiro as "the most prominent etymological riddle of our time".'
- Copper-bottomed
- Show your true colours
- Son of a gun
- Laid-up
- On the beam ends