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Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

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Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#471

Post by mejutoco »

narrator wrote: post #267
jjav wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though that's far from the only case where there's a special word for something on a boat. Understatement of the week... pretty much everything on a boat has a different word for it. Often for practical reasons, sometimes purely traditional reasons. It is nice because it binds one to nautical tradition leading back centuries/millenia.

One interesting thing about middle ages technologies, like boats, is that the words in the different romance languages for things invented in this era are very different from each other. For example, in Spanish boat words like port and starboard are totally different[1]. Other examples of middle ages words that are very different: windmill = molino, wheelbarrow = carretilla. Words that refer to older things have more…

In Spain the computer is el ordenador. Port and starboard are babor y estribor (similar to French).

I think it is more about who introduced these words. Etymology is fascinating.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#472

Post by thaumasiotes »

marvin wrote: post #447
thaumasiotes wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Germanic words stemming from 'kase', referring to caseine Casein was not discovered before cheese was. 'kase' doesn't refer to casein. Casein, the family of proteins, is named after cheese, the milk product consisting in large part of those proteins. And 'kase' is not a Germanic root. Fromage descends from the Latin word for "shape". 'kase' descends from the Latin word for "cheese". > There are two conclusions…

Do you have references for the last of your claims? I thought I did a reasonably exhaustive search for a layperson, but the sources I found could certainly be wrong. My hobby searches in this area have led me to conclude that etymology isn't a hard science, and ultimately one will arrive at someone's qualified opinion about something. The relation between 'kase' and casein is very fair; cheese production obviously pr…

> Why does the French word derive from shape, if the Romans already had a word for cheese?

This is not a question that it's possible to answer. Languages change.

Why is the modern English term dog, a word of no known origin, instead of the native (still extant, but not really alive) term hound?

> Do you have references for the last of your claims? I thought I did a reasonably exhaustive search for a layperson, but the sources I found could certainly be wrong.

Assuming you're referring to the claim that the English word "cheese" (and the similar terms in other Germanic languages) is derived from an ancient borrowing of the Latin word caseus, meaning "cheese", I was not able to find any source that didn't confirm it. Wiktionary will tell you this. etymonline will tell you this. The OED will also tell you this:

> Forms: 1 cese, cyse, 2 cease, cæse, 5 schese, 6 chease, cheise, chiese, ches, 2–6 chese, 4, 6– cheese. [OE. (Anglian) cése, (WSax.) *cíese, cýse (with i- umlaut from céasi, cǽsi) = OHG. châsi (MHG. kæse, Ger. käse), OLG. kâsi, kêsi (MDu. kâse, Du. kaas):—WGer. *kâsi, ad. L. cāse-us cheese (bef. 5th c.).]

Where were you checking that didn't say this?

If you want a reference to the fact that the Latin word caseus means "cheese", try here: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#473

Post by tareqak »

antognini wrote: post #89

It's interesting to compare how different professions handle the ambiguity in left/right. In the maritime world they went with an approach at one extreme, where they just use two completely separate words, "port" and "starboard." (Though that's far from the only case where there's a special word for something on a boat.) At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical s…

Would using the phrases “patient-left” and “patient-right” improve outcomes in the case of operating on the wrong side of the body?

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#474

Post by noxvilleza »

zarzavat wrote: post #140
fargle wrote: post #135

When I was a kid in Minnesota we needed to learn port/starboard and the colors red/green. A trick that helped me remember is that "LEFT", "PORT", and "RED" are all the shorter words and "RIGHT", "STARBOARD", and "GREEN" are the longer words in the respective pairs. FWIW.

I was taught the mnemonic “There’s no red port left in the bottle”. Port wine is red.

Port wine (in a decanter) is also traditionally passed to the left when being poured.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#475

Post by codingdave »

somenameforme wrote: post #465
codingdave wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't impossible, it is just arbitrary. The whole reason we can have this huge thread about different names for directions is that they is just arbitrary labels, with groups of people having a consensus on what word to use. BTW, If you really must explain it without just saying it is arbitrary, you can talk about clockwise vs. counterclockwise... which came from sundials, which came from the direction our shadows…

That's entirely relative to the direction that a body is orbiting about another.

Shadows come from the rotation of the earth, not its orbit. But you are still correct - if the earth suddenly started having inconsistency in the direction it spins, that explanation would fall apart.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#476

Post by mattigames »

mejutoco wrote: post #471
narrator wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting thing about middle ages technologies, like boats, is that the words in the different romance languages for things invented in this era are very different from each other. For example, in Spanish boat words like port and starboard are totally different[1]. Other examples of middle ages words that are very different: windmill = molino, wheelbarrow = carretilla. Words that refer to older things have more…

In Spain the computer is el ordenador. Port and starboard are babor y estribor (similar to French). I think it is more about who introduced these words. Etymology is fascinating.

In the 90s in Colombia (perhaps all LATAM) we used "ordenador" but quickly fell out of use in favor of "computador", now only few old people occasionally call it "ordenador" in this country.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#478

Post by blantonl »

antognini wrote: post #89

It's interesting to compare how different professions handle the ambiguity in left/right. In the maritime world they went with an approach at one extreme, where they just use two completely separate words, "port" and "starboard." (Though that's far from the only case where there's a special word for something on a boat.) At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical s…

Some other persepctives:

"Skier's left/right" for snow skiing. Ambiguity arises when looking uphill or downhill.

When riding on a float in Mardi Gras in New Orleans. You might be on the "driver's side" or "passenger's side". You could also be on the neutral ground side (left) or the other side. Or the rider could be on the "lake side" (left) or the river side (right). Parades run South to North and the Mississippi River would be on the rider's right and Lake Pontchartrain on the left.

Aviation uses a clock face (traffic is at your 2'oclock, northbound) to reference traffic at the pilot's right / front.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#479

Post by rjmunro »

fargle wrote: post #214
riffraff wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy crap my wife is the same, I have to tell her "turn my way" or "turn your way". It drives me insane as I always subconsciously interpret it as a form of lazyness, your framing of it as a form od dyslexia may finally allow me to be less bothered by it!

I was once driving along fine in the left lane and my female friend in the passenger seat suddenly yelled "TURN RIGHT HERE. RIGHT HERE! RIGHT HERE!!!" So I cut across two lanes, avoided several oncoming motorists and made a hasty but decent emergency right turn into the parking lot. She looked disgusted and said "Why did you do that? The place is RIGHT over there" and pointed to an area on the other side of the stree…

This is basically the plot to the John Cleese film Clockwise: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090852/

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#480

Post by tacticus »

Biganon wrote: post #337
zarzavat wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taught the mnemonic “There’s no red port left in the bottle”. Port wine is red.

I think "there's some red port left in the bottle" would be better ; the negation kinda made me think "red" (or "port") was NOT "left".

From memory the No Red Port Left is also about Red on Red passing for ships
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