Murray River Trivia

Have you ever wondered how some common phrases originated, well here are a few that we have dug up. Please send us others that you may know with a nautical theme.

Victory’s sailors ate off square plates - hence the phrase "three square meals a day".

If you divulged a secret, the cat of nine tails would be taken from its bag - you had "let the cat out of the bag"

Nelson "turned a blind eye" by looking through a telescope with his missing eye at a signal he wanted to ignore.

If you ran aground, but were able to escape without being trapped, it was "touch and go".

The place where nobody wanted to work was the dangerous spot near the seam of the hull, called the Devil - so you were "between the Devil and the deep blue sea"

Women weren’t usually allowed on ships, but those on board had to give birth between the guns to keep the gangways clear - their child was a "son of a gun".

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