Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

As I understand it, a ship without out its three sails, or sheets, will wander aimlessly throughout the ocean, much like a drunk will wander aimlessly throughout the streets.

What's with the sailing terms here lately? If you haven't gotten your sails tied down so they hold the wind, you're not going to get anywhere, mos sails have at least 3 lines or ropes that need to be secured to catch the wind (at least in a triangular sale.) That's a likely use for the term which should be used about time to take your friend's car keys away. I suspect the current interest in pirates is bilging these words that have sunken below the horizon on most vistas. Arrr. (Hmmm, how many R's are there in Arrr?)

For what it's worth, I always picture square rigging rather than fore-and-aft when I hear the phrase "three sheets to the wind".   On a square-rigged ship each sail has only two sheets per sail, one at each bottom corner, leading that corner aft.   (Two more lines pull the corners of the sail forward as needed, but they're called "tacks", which is why a ship working its way up against the wind is said to be "tacking".)   A three-masted ship, therefore, has three courses (the lower sails each on a different mast), and six sheets total.   You might think there'd also be sheets for any upper sails the ship might be carrying at the time—topsails, topgallants, even royals and higher—but I believe it's usual for those sails' clews to be fastened to the yard of the sail below.   Those yards are braced to the desired orientation by more lines called (of course) braces.

So a two- or three-masted square-rigged vessel has four or six sheets, and three of the bottom corners of sails flapping loose in the wind brings to mind the vessel staggering along, not indeed completely out of control but pretty slovenly nonetheless.

By the way, one of several ways of signaling distress at sea in those days was "casting off the sheets", letting the sails fly loose.   You would do that only when in sight of a vessel that might help you, of course.