Newspaper editor Joel Havemann ran into a stumbling block when he suggested a new opening for a political story written by one of his reporters. The article, about a senator heading into an election with a clear edge over his opponent, had a ho-hum lead paragraph. "We need something that will grab the reader," Havemann told the reporter. "Why not lead the story with something like, "˜Senator John Jones is riding high'?"

"Not unless his hold is empty!" the reporter shot back.

It wasn't just another newsroom wisecrack. The reporter, an avid sailor with a bent for nautical terminology, had a point. "Riding high" refers to how deep a vessel is immersed in the water. If a merchant ship is laden with cargo and has a full hold, with little freeboard showing, it's said to be riding low in the water. If it has just been unloaded, more of its hull will be out of the water, and it'll be properly described as riding high.

Havemann's experience is hardly unique. Many of our classic expressions have nautical origins, in the sailing-ship days of the 1700s and early 1800s.

"The language was beautifully descriptive then," says Dean King, author of A Sea of Words, a glossary of old sailing-ship terms that's intended as a companion for the Master and Commander series written by Patrick O'Brian, which is set in the 18th-century British Royal Navy. "Once you know the connotations of a certain phrase, it adds another layer of depth to your usage – and it's fun and informative besides."

FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET"Between the devil and the deep blue sea" has always meant you're in a difficult spot.THE WONDER OF WORDS

In some cases, it's easy to fathom how seafaring expressions influenced the modern lexicon. When we talk about eating "three square meals a day," it's not hard to link the expression to the days of sailing ships, where crews traditionally ate from square-shaped mess kits. The square plates were easier to stow in cramped quarters than round dishes would have been.

Ever hear someone complain that a friend or co-worker is a loose cannon? Today that means the person behaves so erratically that he's likely to go off on a tirade. But the term stems from sailing days, when naval cannons, mounted on wheeled carriages that moved to help absorb the recoil after the guns were fired, were tethered by thick ropes so they wouldn't stray too far. When a rope snapped, the gun carriage would roll around the deck and endanger the crew – hence, a loose cannon.

Have you ever heard someone described as being three sheets to the wind? While we use it to mean someone has had too much to drink, the phrase originated with sailing ships. A sheet is a line (rope) that's used to control a sail. When a vessel is facing directly into the wind, its sails can't function properly because the wind isn't pushing on them, or pulling them forward, as it does in the case of jib-sails. So the sheets are flapping uselessly, and the vessel is out of control.

Here are some more expressions that derive from the era of sailing ships:

The devil to pay. "If you don't come in before supper, there'll be the devil to pay." Remember that from your childhood days? The phrase began with square-riggers, and it had more to do with caulking than misbehaving. The outermost seam in the deck planking was called the devil because it was so hard to reach, especially when a sailor was trying to seal it by "paying out" (pouring) hot pitch and smoothing it with a caulking iron. Other versions identify the devil as the seam closest to the keel.

FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET"Flogging a dead horse" referred to the horse latitudes near the Canary Islands.Between the devil and the deep blue sea. Today that means you're facing a difficult decision that puts you, say, between a rock and a hard place. But this one derives from the caulking process again. If you got stuck trying to caulk a devil seam, you'd have only a thin hull between you and the water – a potentially dangerous spot on any ship.

Flogging a dead horse. Today this means an exercise in futility. Interestingly, ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean often passed through the "horse latitudes" around the Canary Islands, characterized by unpredictable winds – and prolonged calms – that seriously delayed almost any transatlantic journey. Getting to the Canary Islands from England traditionally took about 30 days, and crews referred to it as the "dead horse" month.

Sailors marked the end of that part of the voyage by sewing up a canvas "horse" effigy stuffed with straw, whipping it, hoisting it to a yardarm and cutting it loose to fall into the sea, chanting "Old Man (referring to the captain), your horse must die!" According to Olivia Isil, author of When a Loose Cannon Flogs a Dead Horse, There's the Devil to Pay, British Admiral William Smyth remarked that flogging a dead animal to get it to move was just as futile as trying to get sailors to move during the dead horse month, and the phrase stuck.

There are two explanations of how the region came to be called the horse latitudes. One holds that the Spanish named the area the Gulf of the Mares because the winds were so unpredictable. The other holds that because the alternating periods of calm lasted so long, that captains used to throw all the horses they were carrying overboard to conserve water for the crew.