You know how sometimes you look at a word or phrase you’ve known all your life and suddenly wonder about it? That happened to me with by and large, and it turns out to have such an unexpected background I thought I’d post it. OED (entry from 1933):
1. Nautical. To the wind (within six points; cf. by prep. A.I.ii.7) and off it.
1669 Thus you see the ship handled in fair weather and foul, by and learge.
S. Sturmy, Mariners Magazine 17
[…]2. In one direction and another, all ways; now esp., in a general aspect, without entering into details, on the whole.
1707 Tho’ he trys every way, both by and large, to keep up with his Leader.
E. Ward, Wooden World Dissected 351769 Miss Betsey, a charming frigate, that will do honour to our country, if you take her by and large.
in Southern Lit. Mess. vol. XVII. 183/2
[…]
The relevant senses are by 1.d. “Nautical. Close to the wind. Chiefly and earliest in full and by” (c1500 “What worde to sey, he [sc. the loodsman] is in doute, Eyther warae the lof, or ells full and by”; 2001 “With a foul wind, the boat was sailed full and by, and estimates made of the deviation from the direct track”) and large III.18. “Nautical. Of a wind: crossing the line of the ship’s course in a favourable direction, esp. on the beam or quarter” (1578 “Hauing a large winde, we kept our course vppon our saide voyage”; 1984 “With the wind large, and the yard braced in a little, it [sc. the tack] lay directly under the yard”). I expect AntC already knew this, but nautical terms are mare incognitum to me.
I learnt it from one of the Master and Commander books – Stephen tormenting someone else with nautical expressions for a change.
‘So as you see,’ continued Harris, ‘it is quite impossible to sail both by and large at the same time. It is a contradiction in terms.’ The expression pleased him and he repeated , ‘A contradiction in terms.’
‘We do say by and large,’ said Jack. ‘We say a ship sails well by and large when she will both lie close when the wind is scant and run fast when it is free.’
AntC has just come off the water battling a foul wind. I’ve mostly sailed Bermuda rigs, so this terminology from the days of square riggers is not all that familiar.
Like you, I’ve known by and large all my life in the sense ‘on the whole’/’in general’/’usually’.
It seems to be a term of approbation of a vessel, that she behaves well/makes good progress whether making course towards windward (some references spell that bye); or angled away from the wind (but not directly downwind — at which every square-rigger excels). Such vessels are likely to be ‘flighty’ (because they have a deep keel to avoid making too much leeway, and a deep keel makes for a lot of heeling moment). Then contrariwise for example James Cook took pudding-basin Collier ships, which performed badly ‘by and large’ but were reliable. He wasn’t racing to get tea to London.
full and by(e) is also interesting (and what I was doing in today’s foul wind). A foul wind is gusty, typically with the gusts twisting in a different direction to the calms. What’s particularly foul is when the gusts ‘head’ you, so actually stopping the boat rather than giving extra drive. The ‘_full_ and bye’ would be setting up to get maximum benefit from the gusts, at cost of not pointing so much to windward during the calms.
So to express “in every/any direction”, the literal expression should technically have been “full and by and large”, except that “full” was taken for granted?
Sea-Level German Luv “windward side”? (Goes with Lee “leeward side”.)
I should steal that.
The book is borrowable from archive.org – the wording is essentially the same as in the 1831 table here, although the book has put all the versions in one big comparative table.
I learnt it from one of the Master and Commander books
Ah well then, so did I, since my wife and I read them all, but we read The Ionian Mission (the source of that quote) in early 2012, so I’ve long forgotten whatever I learned from it. This is why I have to post about stuff!
AntC: Thanks, that’s exactly the kind of well-informed explanation I was hoping for.
Sea-Level German Luv “windward side”?
I don’t understand the OED citation, but its lof may be the modern word luff
Wiktionary:
Etymonline:
And how about the OED for luff?
Sense 5 is “The fullest and broadest part of a ship’s bow, where the sides begin to curve in towards the stem. †luff for luff: (of two vessels) close alongside.”