Which is also International Talk Like a Pirate day!

Drink hearty, me maties!

Mav, I'll discuss drinking heartily with anyone interested. I am dalehileman@verizon.net and evidently don't care who knows it

Edited to indicate my reference is to The Brew (beer, ale, etc, not to grog as described below)

Interestingly, the definition I know of grog is slightly different. Rather than alcohol diluted with water, it was actually water diluted with alcohol. The water that sailors took with them in barrels got so foul that they were forced to drink it with one part rum in order to be palatable.

Well Hargrimm, the alcohol might have been diluted but it was enough to get the ship's crew hooked. Up until a dark day in 1970, the Royal Navy still allotted a pint a day of rum to crewmen. Arrrrg, matey; the Royal Navy had its own recipe for rum and made it in the navy's own distillery.

The rum was very good and was a boon to recruiting.

See: http://www.pussers.com/rum/history

Just scored myself a bottle of Metusalem Cuban Rum. Very difficult to find down here but well worth the search.

The old seafaring countries' grog is a drink composed of cognac, rum or jenever with hot water, sugar and lemonjuice added.
Highly recommended when one has a cold.

Best excuse for drinking grogs is pretending to have a cold.

I served in the British Merchant Navy for many years and some companies used to give tots of grog once a week for morale purposes. The grog consisted of very strong rum. Under normal circunstances you would not have drunk the stuff as it tasted more like raw aviation spirit. To protect us we were made to drink it with a measure of water and to drink it at the grog table so that we did not save it up for a binge later. It certainly had a kick and did lift your spirits for the rest of the evening. So we did look forward to the "rot-gut".
Ray Ferrie retired seafarer

Given the effect that boats have on my stomach and the effect that alcohol has on my balance I think I'd best avoid getting groggy.
PS Welcome aboard Ray

Mr. Ray Ferry, if you still follow this, "rot-gut", is it a Shetlandish expression? It looks quite familiar. We use rot the same way for certain things we don't like.
f.i. "rot ding" or "rot spul".

Rot gut is used in the States as well, to indicate an alcohol of poor quality.

rotgut

It's probably just to rot (> Old English rotian) and gut (> PIE *gheu- 'to pour a libation', cf. German gießen 'to pour; cast'). Not to be confused with Rotwelsch 'argot, cant, Gaunersprache'.

but of course.

Gaunersprache and Rotwelsch.

Or in Hungary to indicate a good German red wine.

Gosh, I always thought it was called that because it could rot your gut.

Are there any other words you use where "rot"is used as a sort of pseudo prefix? I'm interested because we use it as a prefix often:
rotzooi, rotziekte, rotvent,rotgedoe,rotzak,rotdag.etc.

the rot-part coming from the same source:rotten --- bad quality.
Rotdag : a bad quality day. Rotgedoe: bad quality doings.

Rotwelsh: interesting ZM .

> Rotwelsch

great name for a band.

Are there any other words you use where "rot"is used as a sort of pseudo prefix?

I don' think so. I believe rotgut is a simple compound word, of the form V + N, along the lines of pickpocket and cutthroat. It's interesting how some words get a life of their own as Dutch rot.

band name

Yes, I think it would, too.

Ray: Thank you for that input. Am I not correct that a recent report tells us the practice is stil prevalent in the Australian Navy