Son of a gun
We just can’t get enough of these sayings that are so unexpectedly connected to sailing. Therefore, we have one more interesting fact for you, and this one is related to the saying “son of a gun”. Nowadays, the exclamation is perceived as an affectionate way of addressing or referring to someone. However, in lesser days, when women used to be smuggled on board ships, they would often get pregnant, and if the passage took longer than expected, they needed to give birth right then and there, on the boat. This would usually happen between the cannons on the gun deck. If the child wasn’t claimed by one of the passengers or sailors, it was entered in the ship’s log as being “the son of a gun.”
