What's in a name?
About Pig's Ear
Gig Guide
Albums
Lyrics
News
Links
Home
Day:+44(0)7770.503.241
Eve:+44(0)1732.864.206
Fax:+44(0)1732.864.996
A pig by any other name would smell as sweet... well, maybe not.
In the days of square rig sailing ships, much of a sailor's life was spent setting and furling the sails. Some ships had as many as five masts, and there could be as many as five yards on each mast. That adds up to a lot of sails and a lot of hard work!
The sides of a square sail were known as the "leeches" and attached to each "clew" or bottom corner of the sail, was a rope called the "leechline". Similar ropes, called "buntlines", were attached along the bottom of the sail. All these ropes were led up to blocks set on or toward the centre or "bunt" of the yard, and back down to the deck such that, when the deckhands hauled upon them , the leechlines would drag the leeches in towards the quarters of the yard, and the buntlines would pull the foot of the sail up to the bunt. By this means, the sail was hauled up to the yard, so it was ready to be "bunted" or "furled". To do this, the sailors would climb out along the yard, balancing on "footropes" suspended below the yard itself, the best sailors staying in at the bunt, the younger hands posted to the yard-arms where there was not much canvas to stow.
Conversely, in "reefing" or shortening the sail when a gale threatened, the best men were stationed at the yard-arms, and the less experienced men would be stationed nearer the mast where it was safer. In the Her Majesty's Royal Navy this practice led to a poor sailor being referred to as "a yard-arm furler and bunt reefer".
Furling the sail required each man to get the fold of canvas farthest beneath them into their clutching hands and to "skin the rabbit", that is, to pull up a fold and stow it. The shanty Paddy Doyle's Boots was often used in merchant ships to synchronise the pace at which this was done. In this way, the hands would progressively roll the sail up onto the yard where it could be neatly stowed and secured with short pieces of rope or canvas called "gaskets". Furling a sail could require a herculean effort when the canvas and ropes were wet, or frozen, and the ship was rolling, pitching and tossing.
When times were quieter and a neat stow was required, or at all times if the ship was a Royal Navy wooden-wall, the men would go further and drag the clews of the sail from under the rear of the yard up onto the front and above the yard. Each corner of the sail would thus be neatly positioned to either side of the mast, with the heavy blocks attached to the clews hanging down in what were known as the "pig's ears".
So that's where the term originated. In turns out that, "to make a pig's ear" of a task, means to do a good, neat, shipshape job... quite the opposite of the way the term is used today.
Of course, this research was brought to our attention long after we'd chosen the name for our band, courtesy of our friend, Eric Harrison.
Copyright 2002-2005 PG Rule. All rights reserved.