bottomry / heifer brand

[prettygoodword]

Because I didn't do a Forgotten English Friday last week, because it was doubles week, a double today:


bottomry - "The borrowing money upon the keel, or bottom, of a ship whereby, if the money be not repaid at the day appointed, the ship becomes the property of the creditor ... it is not esteemed usury because if the ship perishes, the creditor loses his money. —Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775"


heifer brand - "To tie a handkerchief around a man's arm to designate that he is to play the part of a female at a dance where there are not enough ladies to go around. He is then said to dance "lady fashion," and his reward is being allowed to set with the ladies between dances. This privilege, however, quite often makes him feel as out of place as a cow on a front porch. —Ramon Adams's Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946"


So the first has nothing to do with what your gutter mind might think it might, but the second does. Bottomry is described in another definition as being in effect a mortgage of a ship.

---L.

Comments

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

"Bottoms" was a synecdoche for a while, I think; you hear about cargoes being carried in Dutch bottoms, say, with no drug mules implied.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

You'll find the term in naval novels of the well-researched variety, such as Patrick O'Brian's. Bottomry, though, was new to me.

---L.