One of my dads finest moments (apart from diving off the flight deck of the Bulwark into the Med on his way to Suez & breaking his collarbone… for a 10shilling bet) was shooting 4.5in guns at one of those towed targets that look like brightly painted scaffold (somewhere off Portland I think). The first shot hit the shackle that held the hawser & parted it.
Phone rings in turret, dad answers, Officer on the other end says “well done, now what the hell are we supposed to do for the rest of the day?” Dad replies: “We could sink that tug that’s chasing the target, it looks hostile….” 🙂

Also salty old sea-dogs at the Admiralty generally didn’t hold a lot of truck with this new fangled ‘air power’ fad which would quickly go out of fashion – far better to spend the Navy budget on ships – it’s not as if an aeroplane would ever be able to sink a ship, and anyway the RAF were clearly no gentlemen. (there then follows 10 hours of rambling on about tradition, Nelson etc) 😉

My dad (retired RN Gunnery Instructor & former Engine Room Tiffy, HMS Troubridge, Bulwark, Hampshire & London) still holds that Airy Fairies are “not proper sailors”

Have a look at the hammers in post #65. That was after only 1 or 2 coats of linseed, they got a few more after that & look much better 🙂
Not all of mine get the BLO treatment, some (newer ones) get a coat or 2 of urethane varnish.

Give that hammer handle a quick scuff with scotchbrite & then rub boiled linseed oil into the handle using #0000 steel wool. It will clean it, preserve it & make it look 100X better.

In a similar vein… WTF is up with Australians adding “ie” or “ies” to the end of words?

Bikies (bikers), carbies (carbs), tinnies (tin cans) ad frigging nauseum…

Route – In America ‘rowt’ – how do they differentiate with “router” ( ‘rowter’ as a tool, how do they pronounce their internet/broadband thingy?)..

Every American I know pronounces it “Root 66” not Rowt 66……

The oddity that most confused me was a lady I knew a while back. She was from Seattle if that helps.

In the kitchen she would always talk of something called “erbs”. It turned out that this was nothing more exotic than good old herbs which for some reason had gained a silent ‘h’

Makes me laugh whenever they pronounce herbs with a West Indies accent 🙂