Monday, July 9, 2007

I Run A Tight Ship

At our usual Sunday afternoon gathering yesterday, Diva Stacy and I deviated from our usual Gunsmoke or Food Network watching, and instead watched the movie "Fargo."  Neither one of us had seen it in its entirety, so we plopped down on the couch with a cool drink and watched it.  We had a good laugh about the Northern accents and phrases they used, and talked about the star William Macy being married to "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman.  We were laughing as Macy's character was being questioned by the police chief, and he was getting pretty agitated and said "I run a tight ship here."  That made me think   I decided to research and find out the meaning and origin of the phrase "run a tight ship."

Sure, we know it means a well managed organization - a home, office, company, club, team, etc.  An online dictionary said the phrase means "to exercise a close, strict control over a ship's crew, company, organization."  I did some more digging, and found it that the phrase refers to a ship in which the ropes are taut, making the ship strictly managed.  The phrase originated in the early 1900's.  Simply put, it means when a ship is at the dock, no matter how big or small it is, if the ropes that moor it to the dock are loose, the ship is going to move around, and could slam into the dock or other ships, causing damage.  If the ropes are tight and the ship is tied close to the dock, it can't move at all and is safely moored.  It makes sense to me.

 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That is very interesting!  Loved that movie, its one of my sister's favorites.