Like me, you probably always thought a toe rag was some kind of cheesy-smelling rag you put on or between your toes, perhaps to help with your blisters.  Colloquially it was an insult denoting a worthless person.  But a visit to the HMS Trincomalee a couple of years ago put me right.

The Trincomalee is one of the last preserved fighting ships still afloat and is moored at Hartlepool Marina.  (Hartlepool, by way of digression, has little to commend it but its Maritime Museum and Marina are well worth the trip). 

The ship was built in Bombay in 1817 and was named after the 1782 Battle of Trincomalee, a port in Ceylon.  Among the several fascinating insights into life on board in the nineteenth century were the explanations of everyday phrases.

The “toe rag”, for instance.  It isn’t “toe rag” at all but “tow rag”.  There was only one netty on board and it was for the Captain’s use only.  Other hands had to squat over the stern to download.  When they’d done the needful they would pull in a tow rope with a rag on the end of it for cleaning up, then chuck it overboard again to give it a quick rinse for the benefit of the next lucky customer.

Sailors who were sick were lifted in hammocks to the opened cargo hatch to give them access to fresh air.  They were “under the weather”.  And surely everyone is familiar with the weather being “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”?

Less well known is that sailors’ platters were square (we were told why but I’ve forgotten), giving birth to the phrase “three square meals”.

Letting “the cat out of the bag” referred to the cat o’nine tails which would have been a truly unwelcome sight if you were “over a barrel”.

“Taking the wind out of (one’s) sails” was a wartime tactic by which one fighting ship might try to position itself windward side of an enemy, depriving his sail of wind and therefore manoeuvrability.

Less plausibly, in my view, we were told that “pull your finger out” referenced the necessity of covering gunpowder in the priming hole of a cannon with a finger to keep it compact and dry and then wisely pulling it out before firing.  I don’t buy that one!