The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Make Someday

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I had the satisfaction of seeing his fore topmast go by the board. I like to think it was the stern-chaser I had just fired that cut the backstay but it was more likely an absurd overpress of sail. Any gate, he came up into the wind...
"Foretopmast": the topmast on the foremast.
"go by the board": be lost, come apart, come away.
"stern-chaser": a gun mounted on the stern of a ship, for use in a chase.
"backstay": a very strong rope leading down and back from a mast-head, to the body of the ship or to a mast behind. Prevents the mast from falling forwards.
"overpress of sail": too much sail for the rigging or masts, for any given weather or point of sailing.
"any gate": at any rate, in any case.
"came up into the wind": turned into the wind. "up" is into the wind, "down" is with the wind.

I like this one too.
"'...upper-tree, side-trees, heel-pieces, side-fishes, cheeks, front-fish and cant-pieces, all scarfed, coaked, bolted, hooped and woolded together; it will be a wonderful sight when it is finished, as solid as the Ark of the Covenant.'" (The Wine-Dark Sea, 52)

I like this part so I'm recording it here.
"'I had the satisfaction of seeing his fore topmast go by the board. I like to think it was the stern-chaser I had just fired that cut the backstay but it was more likely an absurd overpress of sail. Any gate, he came up into the wind...'"

This reminds me of that Monty Python sketch skipvia posted a while ago. WTF are they *saying*?

how about "the real decoy"

I could, mollusque, if I were more systematic about it. Right now I'm just kinda making a teensy dogear on a page when I think I've found a word I never saw before. I don't flag every occurrence, though sometimes I have flagged a word again simply because the volume of new words has made me forget I saw that one -N- books ago. But tags! Yes!

You could use tags if you want to see which words are in which novels.

No, that's right, reesetee. You absolutely can't. But, I did start, about midway through, posting usages, and I guess I could separate them based on the usages. But what fun would that be? I'd rather just have a list with 1,000 words on it! (As long as it doesn't break Wordie.)

And you can't even divide them by novels--I'd imagine each of the words you add appears more than once in more than one of the books.

Gosh, it's fun to be addicted to Wordie, isn't it?

I can't imagine how many words will be on it once I've been through all 20 of the novels. Maybe it'll be like stpeter's list used to be and break Wordie. I'll have to separate it into novel-sized chunks or something. Oh god. Now it isn't just that Wordie is my hobby--it's a Wordie-specific hobby all to itself. ... Teh alsome.

I notice that Patrick O' Brian cover art comes up in the google ads pretty frequently these days. Wonder why that could be?

This list is teh alsome!

Vega, I am constantly coming across your excellent Notebook list! Thanks for posting a link here!

Also, I lucked out: there's a used bookstore in my town that takes books in exchange and gives you store credit. I racked up quite a pile of credit there, and now whenever an O'Brian novel turns up I snap it up. I have about five of the 20 now, and haven't spent a cent on them! Woo!

Woohoo, I have a similar list too, though it's all mixed up. O'Brian is fantastic for broadening vocabulary isn't he?

*is going to get her own boxed set too, someday*

Are you saying I'm behaving histrionically??

Nifty! Only I don't think I have any more room for books in my house. Another few volumes and the place will collapse under its own weight.

Okay, maybe just a couple. ;-)

No need for histrionics, reesetee.

Actually I think you can buy the entire set in a big box or something. They even have unabridged versions (I'm not sure what that means--is that like director's cut movies? Because mostly those suck) and I found not only an atlas companion, but a book called "A Sea of Words" that's basically an Aubrey/Maturin novel lexicon. With sketches and articles and other stuff in it. Coolio!

Ohhhh, aalll right. I'll go to my library. *dramatic sigh*

;-)

There you are! Welcome back. I'm gratified to see that even Wordie greats can still learn stuff. Gives me hope.

No way. I'm using library books this time. But I'm getting myself a whole set someday--I know I'm gonna need to read these again.

Cool. I'll borrow those books when you're finished. :-)