Son of a Gun
"A mild, often affectionate term for a rascal or someone remarkable."
A vivid naval legend claims that when women were permitted aboard Royal Navy ships on long voyages, a child born at sea with disputed parentage would be entered in the ship's log as a "son of the gun," referring to the space between cannons on the gun deck where births reportedly sometimes took place. A 19th-century admiral even claimed it happened to him. Modern linguists are less convinced, and lean instead toward the phrase simply being a rhyming, softer stand-in for a much cruder insult. The phrase is documented from 1708, but its true origin remains unresolved.
Myth vs. FactThe gun-deck birth story is colourful and often told as settled fact, complete with a first-hand admiral's testimony, but there's little hard evidence behind it, and most linguists now consider it more likely the phrase is simply a euphemism that gained a naval legend afterward.
Sources: Admiral William Henry Smyth, The Sailor's Word-Book (1867); linguistic analysis favouring the euphemism theory over the naval birth story.
Quick react
Discuss
New comments are held for a quick check before they show up here.
Loading comments…