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Orson- I have a great interest in Sunderland in the 1820s onwards, and in mariners, and bought the 5 booklet set issued by the Sunderland Antiquarian Society called "Sunderland Under Sail". This is by "Robinson Crusoe" aka Bracey Robson Wilson who wrote a series of articles for a Newcastle paper in his 80s, when blind. This was in the 1880s and the articles were transcribed and published by the SAS. Wilson was a master mariner and his memory is (was?) astounding.
In volume 4 Captain Wilson describes his 1843 voyage of the Cubana from Cuba to Swansea with a cargo of copper ore (considered dangerous, I don't know why. Shifting?). They encountered a hurricane and had to jury rig the masts. With only two sails, the pumps going the whole time and short on provisions they made it back to Swansea.

That's very interesting, rosalind, thank you. My great-great-grandfather was a master mariner who lived in Staithes and he used to sail to Denmark. In fact I come from a long line of ancestors who were involved in fish one way or another.

I also have a book called Memoirs of a Seafaring Man by William Spavens, first published in 1792. There is a glossary of nautical terms at the back but none of these words is listed. Weegee does seem to have been prevalent in the 1840s as the OED gives two quotations from that time.

Malone Rosalind

I have looked at a number of census records of my ancestors in the last few days. Some occupations were listed as "Ag lab" and "Ped ant". I assume they stand for Agricultural Labourer and Pedalling Anthologist.

jigjag

Or perhaps Foot soldier?

Thank you jono, that all ties up and explains spears as well.
I can't picture the arrangements but that doesn't matter, I'm pleased to know what the gear mentioned was.
When I was looking up "spears", I came across the verb to "sally", which means getting the crew to run from one side of the ship to the other in unison, in the hope of rocking it out of ice.

You’re welcome Rosalind.
It’s rather dry text, but the nautical dictionary can be found here...
https://archive.org/stream/ldpd_7518586_000/ldpd_7518586_000_djvu.txt

Rosalind

That's clever. Loved it!

A couple of irritants.

I often hear mitigate [I]against[/I]... e.g 'These measures mitigate against the effective treatment of patients...'

Shouldn't it be 'militate against'?

Mitigate means to soften or to lessen the effect of. So we of course have mitigating circumstances and 'This pill mitigates the pain'.

Has anyone been thus irritated?

Also I have an irrational objection to vaccine pronounced as vakSEEN with the second syllable stressed. I accept that the word can legitimately rhyme with plasticine or Yeltsin but I just want the stress on the first syllable.

Hi Paul

I agree that putting stress on the second syllable is irritating - Boris is a culPRIT !

It also seems that any noun can be used as a verb nowadays - I heard someone on Radio 4 this morning wanting to caveat something.

tyke51
Surely you have the wrong vowel in your Boris example?