A whipping for good luck

Raise your hand if you hate Monday mornings.

*looks around*

Right. Well, me too. Still, I bet that the ship boys in the Navy of old hated them even more:

And the waggery and idleness of the ship-boys are paid by the boat-swain with the rod, and commonly this execution is done upon the Monday mornings, and is so frequently in use, that some mere seamen and sailors do believe in good earnest that they shall never have a fair wind, until the poor boys be duly brought to the chest, that is, whipped every Monday morning. – N. Boteler, “Colloquia Maritima, or Sea Dialogues”, 1688.

I love that. Oh, you’re innocent? Too bad; somebody has to be flogged on a Monday morning, or we’ll all sink.

8 thoughts on “A whipping for good luck

  • 1 September, 2008 at 3:30 pm
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    Frankly, if I was the innocent one getting flogged, I’d let them sink.

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  • 1 September, 2008 at 3:58 pm
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    I think, the implication would be that you’d also sink 😛

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  • 1 September, 2008 at 4:30 pm
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    I don’t care. It’s the principle of it. Besides which, I can swim. And I’m to small for a shark to think I’m a tasty meal. I reckon I’d survive.

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  • 1 September, 2008 at 5:28 pm
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    Talk about taking one for the team… made my Monday seem a little bit better in comparison.

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  • 2 September, 2008 at 4:38 am
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    Eh. Sounds about par for the course for my Mondays at work.

    Metaphorically speaking, of course.

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  • 3 September, 2008 at 3:23 am
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    Mmm… am I alone in thinking that a regularly scheduled Monday morning flogging sounds quite delicious?

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  • 4 September, 2008 at 11:38 am
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    Reminds me of something I read in one of the Horrible Histories books (was it the Terrible Tudors?) about Elizabethan school-masters regularly whipping boys in the morning on winter days just to warm them up…

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  • 5 September, 2008 at 7:43 pm
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    ROTFL Do you know what? I wouldn’t be surprised.

    Reply

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