Sailing: A Sailor’s Dictionary

by Henry N. Beard, Roy McKie

With text by Henry Beard, founder of the National Lampoon and illustrations by Roy McKie, here is the New York Times bestselling lexicon of sailing--or, the art of getting wet and becoming ill while slowly going nowhere at great expense.

Sailing embarks upon uncharted waters, diving authoritatively into terms like adrift (a boat that is drifting), aglub (a boat that is sinking), and flotsam (anything floating in the water from which there is no response when the offer of a cocktail is made).

Full-sail ahead, flying the flag of obsession, the book lists close to 200 definitions and presents more than 50 full-page cartoons--to bring new meaning not just to the anchor and Aneroid Barometer, but to the boom, buoy, brightwork, and Beaufort Scale, too. The book plumbs the depths of the sea's rich traditions, providing a fix on the catamaran and dinghy, the gunwale and jib-boom, the mizzen, porthole, and ketch (a disagreeable clause in many boat-purchase contracts). 710,000 copies in print.

Genres: Reference, Humor, Fiction

95 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 1981

About the author

Henry N. Beard (born ca. 1945) is an American humorist, one of the founders of the magazine National Lampoon and the author of several best-selling books.

Beard, a great-grandson of Vice President John C. Breckinridge, was born into a well-to-do family and grew up at the Westbury Hotel on East 69th Street in Manhattan. His relationship with his parents was cool, to judge by his quip "I never saw my mother up close."

He attended the Taft School, where he was a leader at the humor magazine, and he decided to become a humorous writer after reading Catch-22.

He then went to Harvard University from which he graduated in 1967 and joined its humor magazine, the Harvard Lampoon, which circulated nationally. Much of the credit for the Lampoon's success during the mid 1960s is given to Beard and Douglas Kenney, who was in the class a year after Beard's. In 1968, Beard and Kenney wrote the successful parody Bored of the Rings.

In 1969, Beard, Kenney and Rob Hoffman became the founding editors of the National Lampoon, which reached a monthly circulation of over 830,000 in 1974 (and the October issue of that year topped a million sales). One of Beard's short stories published there, "The Last Recall", was included in the 1973 Best Detective Stories of the Year. During the early 1970s, Beard was also in the Army Reserve, which he hated.

In 1975 the three founders cashed in on a buy-out agreement for National Lampoon; and Beard left the magazine. After an "unhappy" attempt at screenwriting, he turned to writing humorous books.

Reviews

[Carol, She's so Novel ꧁꧂ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

Hmmmm.... I wonder if this was written in alphabetical order, as it seemed to get less funny as it went along- almost as if the authors themselves got a bit bored with this theme. & the entries for each letter got (overall) shorter. A few chuckles at the start though.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely hilarious little book. You will probably love this book, even if you aren't a sailor. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

[Rachel L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of it is absolutely hilarious, some not exactly appropriate. Good for some laughs--I especially like the labeled picture of the parts of a sailboat (including "parking hook").

[Alain Lesage · Rating 3 out of 5]

A humourous book in the form of a dictionary.

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of those silly novelty dictionaries that is funny to someone familiar with the terminology, but not for anyone who really does need to learn what all that stuff means. The history of the notorious lobster mobster, for instance.

[Nonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even William F. Buckley thought this book was funny. Some of it was hilarious...

[Jeanette Chaplin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun look at sailing terms. Absolutely worthless for legitimate research!