inselpeter wrote: >It's not my impression that "to list" refers to the ship going down at all, even though listing heavily would probably lead to it.<
Are we getting bogged down in the semantics of image here? If a ship is taking on water causing it "to lean" or "to list" it is then "in the process of sinking"...no, it doesn't actually have to sink all the way...but it has sunken to a degree. How else to convey the word "list" in the context of the image? If a boat is "listing" at the bow, it is then sinking at the bow...is it not? Is a boat ever listing because it is not-sinking? Can anybody else help "bail me out"?...There we go!...If a boat is taking on water you bail it out because it is sinking...if you bail fast enough it won't actually sink...but while you are bailing the boat it certainly is in the process of sinking. And suddenly I'm thinking of R.D. Laing's "Knots"! I'll swim off toward my life-raft now...
