2006-12-05 16:00:14 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
“How does the term three sheets to the wind denote drunkenness?”
[A] It’s a sailor’s expression, from the days of sailing ships. The terminology of sailing ships is excessively complicated and every time I refer to it people write in to say I’ve got it wrong, usually contradicting each other. So treat what follows as a broad-brush treatment, open to dispute on fine points.
We ignorant landlubbers might think that a sheet is a sail, but in traditional sailing-ship days, a sheet was actually a rope, particularly one attached to the bottom corner of a sail (it actually comes from an Old English term for the corner of a sail). The sheets were vital, since they trimmed the sail to the wind. If they ran loose, the sail would flutter about in the wind and the ship would wallow off its course out of control.
Extend this idea to sailors on shore leave, staggering back to the ship after a good night on the town, well tanked up. The irregular and uncertain locomotion of these jolly tars must have reminded onlookers of the way a ship moved in which the sheets were loose. Perhaps one loose sheet might not have been enough to get the image across, so the speakers borrowed the idea of a three-masted sailing ship with three sheets loose, so the saying became three sheets in the wind.
Our first written example comes from that recorder of low life, Pierce Egan, in his Real life in London of 1821. But it must surely be much older.
The version you give, incidentally, is comparatively recent, since the older one (the only one given in the big Oxford English Dictionary) is three sheets in the wind. However, online searches show that your version is now about ten times as common as the one containing in, so it may be that some day soon it will be the only one around. The version with to seems to be gaining ground because so many people think a sheet is a sail.
2006-12-05 16:02:43 · answer #1 · answered by redcoat7121 4 · 3⤊ 1⤋
3 Sheets To The Wind
2016-10-05 12:32:12 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Three sheets to the wind means drunk. It has its origins in sailing where a sheet is a line attached to a sail and used for steering. The sailor holds on to the sheets to keep the sail in the correct position, and if three sheets are flapping in the wind, then nobody is steering the boat, thus the boat is flailing around without direction---sort of like a drunk man.
2006-12-05 16:13:14 · answer #3 · answered by True Blue 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It means stumbling drunk.
It's a navel expression that refers to the erratic behavior of a ship that has lost control of its sails.
Originally it was "Three sheets in the wind".
In nautical terminology a sheet is a rope that is used to adjust the position of the sails.
It means you've lost control of your sheets - They're flapping "in the wind"
2006-12-05 16:15:54 · answer #4 · answered by dropkick 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Three sheets to (or three sheets in the wind) the wind is indeed a nautical expression.
To understand this phrase we need to enter the arcane world of nautical terminolgy.
Little is as it seems when onboard ship, so it's no big surprise that sheets aren't sails, as landlubbers might expect, but ropes.
If three sheets are loose and blowing about in the wind then the boat will lurch about like a drunken sailor.
The earliest printed citation is Pierce Egan, Real life in London 1821.
From:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/380500.html
2006-12-05 16:02:33 · answer #5 · answered by Yellowstonedogs 7 · 7⤊ 1⤋
The term "three sheets to the wind", meaning "staggering drunk", refers to a ship whose sheets have come loose, causing the sails to flap uncontrolled and the ship to meander at the mercy of the elements.
2006-12-05 16:03:37 · answer #6 · answered by Tim W B 1 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It means to be drunk, It came from the saying way back when you walk home from the local bar and your drunk. A person might walk into the hanging laundry on a clothesline. Hence he would get 3 sheets on his way home. So he was 3 sheets to the wind.
2006-12-05 16:09:01 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Used alot to describe some one drinking or drunk. They say he is 3 sheets to the wind, have heard that all my life.
2006-12-05 16:02:41 · answer #8 · answered by avery 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's a sailor's expression used to denote drunkeness. Check it out at the website.
2006-12-05 16:03:21 · answer #9 · answered by Nay Nay 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It means being drunk...I've only heard this phrase on a country song. I don't really know where the expression came from. Sorry.
2006-12-05 16:08:31 · answer #10 · answered by Shell 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋