I never looked at the phrase "by and large" until we watched WALL-E last night but when I did it made me curious. I use it to mean "for the most part" but how did it get that meaning?
Anyone know?

what AHD4 has to say

By and large: with the wind abaft the beam. Sailors delight.
Abaft: to the rear of; aft of: the fife rail abaft the mainmast. In the direction of the stern; astern; aft.

One leading to another. Fife? Turned into a traverso flute.

So "by and large" meant tacking back and forth to average the right direction.
Thank you I have a whole new concept for the phrase now.

Me too! That's pretty cool!

Tacking is only needed when sailing into the wind. When the wind is coming from the stern, or, indeed, from any direction abaft the beam, there is no need to tack.

...So you can head straight to your destination without going by and large?

In the older, square rigged ships it was not possible to sail into the wind. I'm not sure the etymology offered by the AHD makes any sense, but there you go.

Wgat others have to say: World Wide Words, The Straight Dope, The Phrase Finder, and Scuttlebutt.

Quinion's explanation swells; that of the Dope, blows.
-ron o.

Thar she.

Darcy? Obviously it's strawberry day.

Branny! LOVE your new pic!!
Sorry, Sweetie: "thar she blows" is kind of an iconic expression from old movies about the sea; specifically, whaling.

In the old days the lookout on a whaling ship would look for signs of a pod of whales. When a whale surfaces after a long period of being under water the first thing it does is to release the air in its lungs with an explosive exhalation through its blowhole, the single nostril on the top of its head. This would be visible as a cloud of water vapor. The lookout would announce this to the sailors and officers on the deck below by shouting "Thar' she blows!" "Thar'" is a dialect version of the standard English "there".

One correction here. Having seen humpbacks up close and personal, I know they have two blowholes. Most whales being hunted were/are baleen whales, and they all have two. Toothed whales (killer. dolphin, porpoise etc.) only have one. They were not often hunted by whalers. Many people mistakenly believe that whales spout water, which makes no sense, or that the water seen is what was lying on top of the blowhole, which wouldn't be able to account for the size of the spout. The air in the whale's lungs becomes warm and moist during the dive, which then rapidly condenses into water vapor upon hitting the cool ocean air. Different whales have different spout shapes, too. And it's loud! It sounds like something really, really big gasping for air, which I guess it is. But somehow when you hear it close up for the first time, it's startling. :0)
two blowholes

Thanks for the correction. I always assumed they only had one blowhole. Now I know better.