[Ads-l] landblubber

[Andy Bach]

> The context was a dialogue between a man and a travel agent.  The man
wanted a tour of Hawaii.  The agent asked if he wanted to go on boat tours
between the islands.  The man replied no, he was a "landblubber".  There
was no other wordplay in the script, so this was probably a mistake by the
author.
I always thought it was from the "language" of pirates, the Wikip has it in
"avast"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/avast
The form "avast, ye!" (as in "Avast, Hoisting!" or "Avast, this noise" or
"Avast ye landlubbers!!") is often seen, but this is nonstandard.

I'm sure I heard in it an Errol Flynn movie or two. There's these
suggestions
'Landlubber' is two words, landsman and lubber. Landsman is a person who
lives on the land and knows very little or nothing about ships or the ocean
and lubber is a very clumsy seaman.
It comes from "land" (ground; dirt) + "lubber" (a big, clumsy, stupid
person; a lout).

and:
also land-lubber, "A useless long-shorer; a vagrant stroller. Applied by
sailors to the mass of landsmen, especially those without employment" [W.H.
Smyth, "The Sailor's Word-book"], c. 1700, from land
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/land?ref=etymonline_crossreference> (n.) +
lubber
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/lubber?ref=etymonline_crossreference>
(q.v.).

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 9:04 AM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>
wrote:

> On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 18:53:05 Zone-0400 Mark Mandel <
> mark.a.mandel at GMAIL.COM> posted
>
> >What was the context? That could help determine what it means, or if it's
> a typo.
> >
> >Mark Mandel
> >
> >On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 6:20 PM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Found in a play script.  I don't know how to classify it.
> >>
>
> The context was a dialogue between a man and a travel agent.  The man
> wanted a tour of Hawaii.  The agent asked if he wanted to go on boat tours
> between the islands.  The man replied no, he was a "landblubber".  There
> was no other wordplay in the script, so this was probably a mistake by the
> author.
>
> - Jim Landau
>
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