Gundecking, the Fabricating of Data and Paperwork

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Peter. I’m calling from the Catskill Mountains in Barryville, New York.

I’m in my log cabin, the wood stove is blazing, and I have 53 acres of forest here, and I’m sitting here looking out at the deer.

Oh, that sounds lovely. Well, what’s on your mind today, Peter?

Well, I joined the Navy when I was 17, back in 1967.

And I learned a whole new language and some of the words I could even talk about on radio.

But the one word was gundec, not the noun gundec, which is, I know, you know, from 18th and 19th century ships, but the word to gundec.

And to me, it meant that you were kind of glossing over things, that you were, if you had a report, you didn’t actually check out everything in the report.

You just kind of checked them off, and that was gun decking.

So that’s the word I’m interested in.

And so, Peter, what did you do in the Navy?

Did you do something where you had to write a lot of reports?

No, I was a bosun mate.

And the way things work in the Navy is that you pick a particular occupation, something you want to do, and you strike for that.

And you have to take a test.

You take two tests.

One’s written test to show that you know how these things work. And there is called practical factors.

And you would have to demonstrate knot tying and all sorts of other things. So that was the report to fill out.

So you would have someone watch you do these things, allegedly, and then they would check it off and say that you know how to do it.

But sometimes people just say, oh, yeah, you know how to do that, don’t you? So that was gun decking.

So the other person isn’t being rigorous.

And so maybe they’re just copying an old report or simply checking yes because they want to be done.

Or maybe it’s just too much work for the time allotted.

So they’ve got to, you know, just shortcut it.

All the above.

All the above.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is a really interesting term.

And as you mentioned, gun deck, of course, he is a part of some older ships where the guns are.

And there’s a couple different stories about why we might use gun deck as a verb, meaning to make up or falsify or fudge records or reports.

One of them is that there was a habit, of course, of taking soundings and measurements in order to navigate on deck, but then not doing the math until you got below.

And so there was a certain amount of relying on memory once you got below approximating what your measurements were when you were on the deck.

And then there’s another one, which is the gun deck apparently was a place where you could hide out and shirk your duties.

So we don’t know which of these is the true origin of gun deck, but both of these stories make their rounds.

Even now, in the navies around the world, because it’s not just an American term.

It’s also used in Australia and the UK and elsewhere.

Oh, wow. Okay.

But there’s been a couple different people trying to get to the bottom of it and nothing really conclusive was found.

But the fact remains that even now gun decking is a thing.

And a lot of times it has to do with the people upstairs making really unreasonable demands on the time of the people downstairs.

So your CEOs want you to do all of these reports that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

Imagine that.

Yeah, so you have to kind of just do a version of the last report without actually double-checking everything.

There’s a story that makes the rounds about a guy who worked on a submarine.

And he was supposed to do these reports where he tests the equipment, but the whole submarine had to be shut down.

And this is what happened multiple times a day.

And he’s like, there’s no way I can have everyone not do their duties while I run this report for an hour several times a day.

So he would have to fake it.

You’d have to gun deck it.

Oh, that’s interesting.

I guess research will continue on this matter.

There’s one other term.

Years ago on your show, someone inquired about the term boondocks.

Oh, yeah.

And in the Navy, there’s actually a term called boondockers.

And those are the shoes, at least they were when I went in, these kind of low-cut boots that you were issued to do work.

So there’s another term for the Navy.

Yeah, I knew that one.

My father used that one.

He had spent a couple years in the Army.

And it was synonymous in our family with cloth hoppers, kind of these sturdy farm boots that you might wear that would protect your feet if you dropped equipment.

Oh, okay.

There you go.

Well, Peter, thank you so much for calling and sharing your memories of your service.

Take care of yourself out there.

Don’t get too rustic.

I’ve gone total rustic, man.

We may join you.

Good enough.

You’re most welcome to come.

All right.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Thanks.

Bye.

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