Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
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My wife heard it on the radio tonight, and mentioned it to me.
I found 487 GoogleHits (versus 148,000 for “batten down the hatchesâ€).
In the first 30 hits, I found these two explanations:
#1:
I’m really ashamed to say this, but until I saw this thread I thought the phrase was to “button” down the hatches! I always assumed it was one of those crazy sailor terms and to ‘button’ a hatch was to secure it.
hangs head I’m so ashamed! I just never thought about it much, I’m from Utah! We don’t sail or have hatches here!
We do have buttons though…
#2:
1.3. xp home autoupdate
Tech Locksmith
08/18/04
Button down the hatches, the BBC has reported that Microsoft has just made an 80M update available for automatic update of XP Home systems.
Autoupdate for XP Pro isn’t expected till the end of August so you still have time to turn it off.
1.3.1. Isn’t that “Batten” down the hatches? patenai
08/18/04
1.3.1.2. perhaps, perhaps not
Tech Locksmith
08/19/04
I was mostly making a weak pun on button down collars and such but, you know, back when I was writing for “Cruising World” and the editor of “The Wooden Boat” lived on the next boat, we used to debate that occasionally while sitting on the deck of my schooner or one of the neighbor’s boats in a Boston area marina.
I know that “batten” (sometimes baten) is the common use of the term, but I came to the conclusion that it was a bastardization from a royal navy term back when buttons were used for holding your pants (but not shirt) shut but battens hadn’t been invented yet because you don’t use them on square sails.
If you look at some old sailor’s uniforms you might notice the rear hatch which is held by two buttons.
You see, the only battens on every sailboat I ever captained or crewed on were slim and flexible strips of wood or, more recently, fiberglass which are used to stiffen and distribute stress on the roach of a sail, so it doesn’t make any sense to batten down massive wooden hatches.
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According to dictionary.com:
Batten – to cover (a hatch) so as to make watertight (usually fol. by down).
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You needn’t have a literal “batten” to use the figurative version of the verb.
According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate (10th Edition), “batten” as a noun is a thin strip of wood used to seal or reinforce a joint (if you ever see cabinet doors make of several pieces of wood instead of plywood, you may find a slat of wood going across the top and the bottom on the inside—this is one kind of a batten).
http://www.valleycustomdoor.com/solidwood.html
So the verb form naturally sprang from the noun, both arriving in the second half of the 1600s—when hatches on ships or boats would have had woodworkers’ joints.
But nobody knows what a batten is anymore, and I think “button down the hatch” is a classic example of an eggcorn (and of folk etymology). Buttons are fasteners we understand (and they can be quite secure), and the term is used in technology of our current age. Battens, fasteners though they may be, are not.
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Tim Leonard,
“Battens” were indeed relatively slim and flexible pieces of wood used to “batten down” massive wooden hatches. The hatch was already covered by a hatch cover, which was not solid but a heavy latticework, permitting air and light to reach the deck below. In a storm, the hatch was “battened down”—covered with a heavy water-repellent canvas tarpaulin pinned in place by battens.
And that’s why we read Patrick O’Brian. . .
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