"Stay the Course"

[Dave Wilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Sam Clements
> Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 6:51 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "Stay the Course"
>
>
> I should also add my congrats to Fred and Kathleen.
>
> The earliest "stay the course" reference I can find is in
> Christine Ammer's
> Am. Heritage  Dictionary of Idioms,  talking about a 1916 horse race.  Has
> this been antedated?  And why the nautical sense that Safire referred to?

A "stay" is a rope that supports a mast, esp. on a square-rigged vessel. It
is found in various nautical phrases like "to miss stays" (to fail to come
about). One could easily assume that "stay the course" has something to do
with this, although the earliest citations I'm aware of refer to racing, not
sailing.