Quote:

Speaking of nautical terms, how did "sheets" come to mean "ropes"?



sheet rates two headwords in OED2, for which the second goes something like this:

[OE. scéata wk. masc., having the meanings of OE. scéat (see SHEET n.1), also = lower corner of a sail, ‘pes veli’; in comb. scéatlíne ‘propes’ (see Wr.-Wülcker 183/26 and 288/24) = MLG. schôtlîne, in which sense the simple word is recorded from the 14th c. For the cognate forms and their meanings see SHEET n.1; cf. SHOOT n.2]

anticipating a bit:
three sheets in the wind: very drunk.
a sheet in the wind (or wind's eye) is used occas. = half drunk.

comment: if you're numerically inclined you're prolly thinking, shouldn't half-drunk be a sheet and a half?