SA Footy

3 sheets to the breeze

My mate has just started rolling this one out and I've just seen wristwatcher use it on here. I know it means your half cut but how does it relate? Shagged if I can work it out....

Be interested to know some of those other Aussie pearlers we use and where they come from. Ask in here folks

I always knew it as a sailing term :

In long --

Very drunk.

Origin
Our colleagues at CANOE, the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything, have been hard at work and, to their great pleasure, they can add this phrase to their list. 'Three sheets to the wind' is indeed a seafaring expression.

To understand this phrase we need to enter the arcane world of nautical terminology. Sailors' language is, unsurprisingly, all at sea and many supposed derivations have to go by the board. Don't be taken aback to hear that sheets aren't sails, as landlubbers might expect, but ropes (or occasionally, chains). These are fixed to the lower corners of sails, to hold them in place. If three sheets are loose and blowing about in the wind then the sails will flap and the boat will lurch about like a drunken sailor.
The phrase is these days more often given as 'three sheets to the wind', rather than the original 'three sheets in the wind'. The earliest printed citation that I can find is in Pierce Egan's Real Life in London, 1821:

"Old Wax and Bristles is about three sheets in the wind."

Sailors at that time had a sliding scale of drunkenness; three sheets was the falling over stage; tipsy was just 'one sheet in the wind', or 'a sheet in the wind's eye'. An example appears in the novel The Fisher's Daughter, by Catherine Ward, 1824:

"Wolf replenished his glass at the request of Mr. Blust, who, instead of being one sheet in the wind, was likely to get to three before he took his departure."

The earliest manifestation of the phrase in print that I know of is the 'two sheets' version. That is found in The Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury, 1815, which recounts Asbury's travels through Kentucky. His entry for September 26th 1813 includes this:

The tavernkeepers were kind and polite, as Southern folks should be and as Southern folks ought not to be; they were sometimes two sheets in the wind. O, that liquid fire!

That leads us to think that the phrase may be of American origin. However, Asbury was English, born in West Bromwich (a short walk from where I was born, as it happens) and travelled to America when he was in his mid twenties. Whether he took the phrase with him from the English Black County or heard it (or indeed coined it) in the US, we can't be certain.

Robert Louis Stevenson was as instrumental in inventing the imagery of 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' piracy as his countryman and contemporary Sir Walter Scott was in inventing the tartan and shortbread 'Bonnie Scotland'. Stevenson used the 'tipsy' version of the phrase in Treasure Island, 1883 - the book that gave us 'X marks the spot', 'shiver me timbers' and the archetypal one-legged, parrot-carrying pirate, Long John Silver. He gave Silver the line:

"Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye. But I'll tell you I was sober; "

I am not sure that is Australian considering Finch said it in the first American Pie if I remember correctly.

Squids wrote:I am not sure that is Australian considering Finch said it in the first American Pie if I remember correctly.

Correct, if it is an old nautical term, it would probably be of British origin passed through the ages down to Australian seamen.

Quichey wrote:*

Ha!

"Went to see a man about a dog". Bit of an oldie, don't hear it much, but does it mean to take a leak?

Also, does "old man/boy" and "old girl/lady" refer to parents or to spouse? Always thought it was the former, but starting to think I might be wrong.

FlyingHigh wrote:"Went to see a man about a dog". Bit of an oldie, don't hear it much, but does it mean to take a leak?

I don't think it means that.

I remember hearing that saying a fair bit when I was a kid. I took it to be what someone would say when you asked them where they'd been and they didn't want to give you the real answer, so they'd say "went to see a man about a dog".

GWW wrote:

FlyingHigh wrote:"Went to see a man about a dog". Bit of an oldie, don't hear it much, but does it mean to take a leak?

I don't think it means that.

I remember hearing that saying a fair bit when I was a kid. I took it to be what someone would say when you asked them where they'd been and they didn't want to give you the real answer, so they'd say "went to see a man about a dog".

Often used by my father's generation and older and tends to mean going to the toilet over here but didn't always in the past...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_a_man_about_a_dog

Booney wrote:

Squids wrote:I am not sure that is Australian considering Finch said it in the first American Pie if I remember correctly.

Correct, if it is an old nautical term, it would probably be of British origin passed through the ages down to Australian seamen.

Still in common usage over here but we say 'three sheets to the wind'...means you're rat-arsed and here's why...thought the ex-matelots on here might have known that one...

The term "three sheets to the wind," meaning "staggering drunk," refers to a ship whose sheets have come loose, causing the sails to flap uncontrolled and the ship to meander at the mercy of the elements.

Regards
JAS

Youngsters of today!
"went to see a man about a dog" is going for a leak.
"old man/boy" and "old girl/lady" The old lady is my spouse.

Old girl old man etc mean parents

Well you learn something new every day then, I didn't realise what "seeing a man about a dog meant", but now I do.

In my youth "seeing a man about a dog" was a general expression when you did not intend to be specific about where you had been or where going.
Obviously that would naturally extend to cover "pointing Percy at the porcelain", or "shaking hands with the trouser snake", or female variants thereof.

i love the sayings like dead horse, teddy bears, china plates etc.

how the hell did people used to speak like this?

I seem to be singular in saying "hooroo" to people, or using the phrase "a cheeky koala" about someone who pushes the envelope a bit.

Re To see a man about a dog:

Growing up I got sick of hearing "Going to see a man about a dog" lol

And for us it meant as stated above - parents just didn't want to tell us where they were going and/or it was another way of telling us to mind our own business

Kids: "Where have you been?"
Parent's: "To see a man about a dog"
Kids:

Actually probably make a good 'skit' in a Carl Barron show

CK wrote:I seem to be singular in saying "hooroo" to people, or using the phrase "a cheeky koala" about someone who pushes the envelope a bit.

Well you, and Keith Conlon.

Johno6 wrote:i love the sayings like dead horse, teddy bears, china plates etc.
how the hell did people used to speak like this?

It is attributed to an origin in Cockney rhyming slang.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney_rhyming_slang

cheers psy.


i used to always say to guys at work when i was heading out "im going to see a man about a dog" and coz i had a racing greyhound at the time, they always thought i was going to watch my dog race (lose)

Psyber wrote:In my youth "seeing a man about a dog" was a general expression when you did not intend to be specific about where you had been or where going.

I remember that was my dads excuse often, when I was a toddler.

I thought he would one day bring home a puppy.....

Now he is 95 and living with me.....