Originally Posted by
ramblingboy42
G'day Pickles, we meet again....I too have just this minute read the thread in it's entirety.
couple of questions....one....as a soldier I always referred to sailors as pussars.
So I looked in the Macquarie and it's not mentioned.....where did the terminology come from?
second.....I couldn't help noticing all you pussars saying you "drive" the boats.....did you also "drive" the ships?
third....when does a boat become a ship.
hope the term pussars doesn't offend.....it's not meant to.
Dennis
btw....we also often referred to you as matelots.....unless we were having a game of interservice footy......which we won!
I have the answer to your questions.
From the Oxford companion to ships and the sea
BOAT- The generic name for small open craft without any decking and usually propelled by oars or outboard engines. Some exceptions to this general definition are fishing boats, sometimes decked or half decked and propelled by sail and/or inboard motors, and submarines, which are generally known as boats, irrespective of size. This oddity of nomenclature almost certainly derives from their original and universal description as submarine boats.
The original torpedo boats, forerunners of the more modern destroyers and frigates, were also generally known in their time as boats although built up to a displacement of 250-300 tons. Another exception to the rule is the modern fast patrol boat, successor to the motor torpedo boats, and motor gun boats of the of the 2nd World war. Some yachts are also known as boats.
Boat is a word frequently used by people ashore when they really mean ship, and such terms as packet boat mail boat, etc, are in fairly general use. A seaman will never call any ship, packet, mail, or any other , a boat, as thee two terms are not synonymous and, are to him , quite distinct.
Purser [ Pusser] The old name by which the paymaster and officer responsible for provisions and clothing, in both the British and US Navies, was known. He was responsible for issuing all food in a ship according to the daily scale of rations laid down.
SHIP- From the old English, scip, the generic name for sea going vessels, as opposed to boats, originally personified as masculine but by the 16th century almost universally expressed as feminine. [ About 3 more pages of explanation, but my typing finger is sore. ] Bob
I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food
A bookshop is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking
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