Author: Mary

So last night after dinner, which was soup, I realized that I hadn’t removed my spoon from the bowl and placed on the plate under the bowl. I commented that I hadn’t “shipped my oar,” and Stan looked at me with that ‘Are you speaking English?’ look that he gives me when he has no idea what I’m talking about.

I explained that growing up if we had soup, or some other item in a bowl or parfeit glass, if I didn’t remove my spoon and put it on the plate under the container my dad would remind me to “Ship your oar.” Now living with my grandparents in the house, there were some sayings from eras gone by that I heard on a regular basis, and never really questioned. Now that I occasionally use them around a ‘new’ person, I get questioned and I don’t always have a good etymological explanation.

“Ship your oar” usually came from my father although it could’ve originated with my grandmother, since she did raise him, too. The term actually means the opposite of what I was doing, since to ‘ship your oar’ is to place the oar into the crutch in preparation of rowing, whereas to ‘boat your oar’ is to return the oar into the boat.

In the end it’s just another weird thing that my family says.