whats a coker???

[Dutchman]

i have found entries in a log about cokers at work on the decks or spars, but no further explination of what they are doing. well coke is a cleaner durring the period, so am i safe to assume these folks were cleaning the ship?

[Capt. Sterling]

Well the Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, by Eric Partridge, Paul Beale

says Coker: a lie: ca. 1670-1830 or it could stand for caulker or corker

[Dutchman]

i thought about that as well and it is entirely possible but why would they be on the mast? if this were the case, could they also be serving and parceling rigging? a preceeding entry mentions drawing old hammocs for serving the hawser- which means someone, not necessarely our mystery coker, was working on lines the day before.

[Capt. Sterling]

Don't know, have not heard the term before... except in use in the canting dictionaries.. where again it comes up as a lie... and cokes are simpletons... so maybe they have the fools up there cleaning the ship... See what Foxe has to say.

[William Brand]

Liars were called before the mast for the purpose of cleaning the head. A sailor caught in a lie was designated as the Liar (usually for a week) and had the wonderful duty of cleaning the rope and hole that constituted the toilet (or head) at the bow of the ship. As Coker also means liar, it may be that the duties of cleaning went further and to more people at one time than I had previously heard of before now.

[Guest]

Not Nautical, and from a work of Fiction...... and I'm not quoting.... just from wot I remember....

But there was something in Northwest Passage... about Rodgers Rangers....

Ye can lie all you want to other folks, tell them yer stories, just don't lie when yer givin a report to me.... (something like that... I'm paraphrasing.... )

[Fox]

Hmm, difficult to say without more details. Any chance of copying out the relevant entries? Are there any other entires about cokers? Was the ship in harbour or at sea?

Off the top of my head:

It could mean they were cleaning. AFAIK the 'liar' seems to be a fairly early thing (Tudor, Jacobean), I've never come across it in the GAoP - but of course I don't know what date we're talking about.

A coak is also a part of a block so there might be a lead there.

If it were just work on the deck I'd say amost certainly that it meant 'caulkers', but that doesn't explain the top-work.

Nothing new to add from any of my period dictionaries I'm afraid

[Cascabel]

Just a thought........ Do you suppose it's nothing more mysterious than poor spelling on the part of the person that made the log book entry, and he meant "caulker" ?

Further reading of the log may reveal other "unusual" spelling variations. There seems to be lots of spelling variations in some of the old writings, which can cause confusion among modern readers that are used to "standard" spellings of words.

>>>>> Cascabel

[Dutchman]

this is a R.N. log from 1750's of a ship patrolling the west coast of europe/africa. below are some of the entries regarding the ships housekeeping. Entry # 4 is interesting, but #5 refers to the mystery coker. Of note the first three and last two are by different authors as there was a change of command and coker does not appear until the second author. I'm trying to relocate the cokers in the rigging entry.

.........At 3 PM a signal for all lieutenants in general. At 5 came on board longboat with water and boatswains stores.

AM Employed scraping the masts and paying of them.

........At 2 PM a signal for all lieutenants in general.

AM Employed scraping the quarterdecks.

........AM Employed scrubbing the ship's bottom.

.......Ditto sent out a tender with a lieutenant and men to impress seamen. Ditto had a survey on the main mast after(?) which the master mast maker gave his opinion not sprung. At 11 ditto swam ashore and ran away Robert Gordon seaman.

AM Heeled ship. Scrubbed and payed the starboard side.

........PM Employed in taking in the ballast and getting the cables on board.

AM Employed in taking on the ballast and bending the small bower cable. The cokers employed with the gun deck.

edit* Cascabel you are probably right, but this appears often enough in this one log book to get a second or third looksee before I write it off as bad spelling. Also, the ship is both underway and anchored when the various entries are made.

Edited April 15, 2009 by bbcddutchman

[oderlesseye]

says Coker: a lie: ca. 1670-1830 or it could stand for caulker or corker

He was a person who chalked between the planks to make them water tite.

"Caulking Wooden Ships

"The planks of a wooden ship are grooved to allow space for the insertion of caulking material between adjacent pieces. There are several materials used for caulking planked wooden ships. Historically, a fibrous material called oakum was used; today a number of different plastics, known as elastomers, are also available.

Elastomers consist of long, tightly twisted molecules that stretch and recoil, much like a spring. Plastic caulking materials are thoroughly mixed with a liquid curing material just before application, and the combined paste is then injected into the clean seam. The outer surface of the seam is smoothed off until it is level with the adjacent planks. When properly applied, plastic materials are far superior to oakum because they adhere to the wooden planking like glue, and they retain their rubber-like elastic properties indefinitely.

Oakum may still be used for recaulking older ships; it is also used in places where plastics are not available. Oakum is made from old hemp rope that has been untwisted and picked apart. It is generally used in the form of loosely spun yarn and may be untreated (white) or saturated with a tarry substance (black). Oakum comes in balls or in rope form. "

Edited April 15, 2009 by oderlesseye

[Sjöröveren]

The cokers employed with the gun deck.

If they were on the gun deck, then they would almost have to be 'caulkers' wouldn't they? No top work being done on the gun deck, I think. Isn't the gun deck the first deck below the main deck?

[Dutchman]

at this point i'm leaning towards the poor gramar as a caulker rather than coker. maybe the au was pronounced o and thats how he wrote it- as he heard it. anyhow, i'm as well trying to reason why a caulker would be in the rigging unless it was a general term of work for the day as in the caulkers were working on the deck then wormed and parceled the shrouds. . .. although, the first entry mentions paying the mast. you pay seams- as in the devil to pay- caulking the devil seam- but what is there to pay on the mast? after thinking about this---later entries refer to a dammaged mast after a bit of rough weather. maybe the mast had already sprung and they were sealing the checks to delay the inevitable? incidentaly- scraping the quarter deck is most likely removing the excess... ahem-"dried" tar from the deck after paying the seams.

[callenish gunner]

I must agree with you dutch since in the GOAP there was no standard spelling in a great deal of the english language it was spelled by in large phonetically;

"In the first half of the eighteenth century there was no rival in the English language to the dictionaries, such as the Vocabulario degli Accademici della Crusca and Le dictionnaire de l'Academie Francaise, produced by the continental academies. Some, such as Alexander Pope and Joseph Addison, had proposed such a work but none had undertaken it until Samuel Johnson started work on A dictionary of the English language, which was published in 1755.

Johnson was paid 1,500 guineas by a consortium of booksellers to produce the dictionary. The work was expected to take three years but eventually took nine. It finally appeared in 1755 in two large folio volumes and contained the definitions of over 40,000 words. Johnson's main innovation was that he included quotations to illustrate the meaning and usage of words. Johnson included 114,000 quotations from various sources. He did not restrict himself to quoting literary sources but also quoted extensively from scientific, medical, legal and theological works. It was also more comprehensive than previous dictionaries. For example, McAdam and Milne have pointed out that while Cockeram gave no definitions of "to take" and Bailey gave only eighteen, Johnson gave 134.

Johnson's dictionary is full of humour. His description of oats as a "grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people" is well known. He defines pension as an allowance made without equivalent, which in " England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country". He defines excise as a "hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid".

Occasionally he allows his personal views to colour the definitions of words. He obviously had Lord Chesterfield in mind when he defined a patron as "one who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with indolence, and is paid with flattery". Lord Chesterfield had refused Johnson any real financial aid while he was compiling the dictionary but when it neared completion hinted that he would like it dedicated to him. He gives us a glimpse of his personal views when he describes the sonnet as a form "not very suitable to the English language." Sometimes Johnson makes mistakes, as when he describes the word "pastern" as meaning as the knee of a horse when it is in fact the foot of a horse. This error was not corrected for eighteen years. "

So in most cases the spelling prior to this work and even later could vary due to the educational level and dialect of the writers of reports or documents