WHAT THE FO’C’S’LE?!

Fo’c’s’le —pronounced “foke-sul”— has more apostrophes than any other word in the English language. It’s also the syncope—pronounced “sin-kuh-pee”— of the word forecastle.

A syncope is a colloquial reduction of a word. In phonology ( a subdiscipline of linguistics ), syncope is the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word.

Forecastle, refers to the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast—or, ‘before the mast’. The forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters is also called the forecastle and denotes anything related to ordinary sailors —as opposed to a ship's officers.

The term ‘forecastle’ relates to medieval shipbuilding when a ship of war was usually equipped with a tall, multi-deck castle-like structure in the bow of the ship. It served as a platform for archers to shoot down on enemy ships, or as a defensive stronghold if the ship were boarded.

A similar but usually much larger structure, called the aftcastle, was at the aft end of the ship, often stretching all the way from the main mast to the stern. Having such tall upper works on the ship was detrimental to sailing performance. As cannons were introduced and gunfire replaced boarding as the primary means of naval combat during the 16th century, the medieval forecastle was no longer needed, and later ships had only a low, one-deck high forecastle.

Many modern non-sail ships have no forecastle at all but the name is still being used to indicate the foremost part of the upper deck and for any crews quarters in the bow of the ship, even if below the main deck. In addition to crew's quarters, the forecastle may contain essential machinery such as the anchor windlass.

Syncopes are common in nautical terms due to the nature of their pronunciation during the Age of Sail by sailors with strong accents and varying language skills. Another example is boatswain ( an unlicensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship) and the syncope of the word—bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun.

Now that we’ve learned about syncopes and naval terms, let’s all grab a cup of Signal Coffee and head down to the fo’c’s’le ‘cos the bo’s’n has some nice coxcombing to see!

all our best,

—Signal

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