how did they come about ?

[Brian Charles Williams]

How did cakes etc become ``tab nabs``? Why a Rosie ? Fiddles ? and many more``ship board`words which have faded from my mind over the years. When some of these words came out in conversations with `land lubbers` the look you got was like you were speaking a foreign language ! I can recall too that it was often said if something was no good it was said ``it`s under the arm``!!....Nudge my memory fella`s there are many more. Brian W.

[Keith at Tregenna]

Polari (or alternatively Parlare, Parlary, Palare, Palarie, Palari; from Italian parlare, "to talk") is a form of cant slang used in Britain by some actors, circus and fairground showmen, merchant navy sailors, criminals, prostitutes, and the gay subculture ?

[Ivan Cloherty]

Brian, Fiddles was the name originally given to the longitudinal and thwartship bars with notches in them used on the galley ranges, they were designed so that they could be fiddled around to suit the size of pots on the range to stop them sliding around, they then graduated to the messroom and saloon tables, but you already knew that! However in the saloon the stewards usually wet the table cloths as some Masters didn't like the fiddles been used, this stopped the plates sliding around. The fiddles were put in place on the galley range on the trawlers I sailed on as soon as we left the Humber and rounded Spurn Point, trawlers were rarely still.

Rosie probably named after a girl that would take anything thrown into her!!!!!!!

[Keith at Tregenna]

These are well known to crews of British merchant navy ships and North Sea oil rigs. They’re pastries or cakes, always baked on board, that are usually served at tea breaks, morning or afternoon.

The first known user of the term in print is Malcolm Lowry. In his Under the Volcano of 1947 appears: “The tabnabs were delicate and delicious little cakes made by the second cook.” He wrote even earlier:

It was one bell, a quarter to four, time to make the tea for the crew. ... He filled the teapot which he had left in the galley since dawn and took it with the tabnabs down aft to the forecastle.

Ultramarine, by Malcolm Lowry, 1933. It is certain that Lowry got this term from personal experience, as this novel is based on his experience of shipping as a deckboy on a Liverpool freighter to Yokohama in 1928.

It is definitely older. An indication of that is an old sea song:

Now come wid me, me dearie,
An’ I will stand ye treat,
I’ll buy ye rum and brandy, dear,
An’ tabnabs for to eat.

The New York Gals, reproduced in Shanties from the Seven Seas, by Stan Hugill, 1961. The date is unknown but Mr Hugill says it goes back before the 1930s.

Its provenance is obscure. It may originally have been Royal Navy slang.

[Keith at Tregenna]

How did cakes etc become ``tab nabs``? Why a Rosie ? Fiddles ? and many more``ship board`words which have faded from my mind over the years. When some of these words came out in conversations with `land lubbers` the look you got was like you were speaking a foreign language ! I can recall too that it was often said if something was no good it was said ``it`s under the arm``!!....Nudge my memory fella`s there are many more. Brian W.

tabnab:

(slang, Britain, Polari, Navy, ) A small item of food offered at break times, normally the morning break.

K.

[Keith at Tregenna]

Old English.


Tab — Tail-buzzer.

AB, the (popular), the
Tabernacle of Mr.
Spurgeon.

Tabby party

(common), a party consisting
entirely of women. Tabby is a
colloquialism for an old maid
or gossip.

?

Nab: Verb. 1 To steal.

2. To arrest. E.g."Charlie's been nabbed with his hand in the till again."

?

K.

[Brian Charles Williams]

Now you mention it Ivan I now recall the cook doing different configurations with bars on the range to accommodate different size pots especially in heavy weather. I too when `doing` the saloon in weather would wet the table cloths down, very seldom putting the fiddles up. I can imagine it would be a must on a trawler, smallest I was on was 1300 ton so we wouldn`t have rocked & rolled as much as you ! The Rosie explanation will satisfy me.....I like it !............thanks, Brian W.

[happy daze john in oz]

I think the language we learned at sae stays with most of us for ever.
I was telling my brother the other day I was going to paint the deck heads and he looked at me like some form of idiot. But as with rhyming slang it is something once learned you never forget and it will pop up from time to time.

But as to Polari, the gay community on UCL, and no doubt P&O, Cunard etc had a language all of their own.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Old English.

AB, the (popular), the
Tabernacle of Mr.
Spurgeon.


K.

Sorry Keith about Mr Spurgeons tabernacle, it has nothing to do with tabnabs at sea, the tabernacle on sailing ships and ships lifeboats is the official term used for the socket that the mast is stepped into on the keel

[j.sabourn]

You haven't mentioned sheerlegs to Keith yet Ivan. Mine are sheer bloody awful. JWS