I was reading an article in a scientific magazine recently and I came across the word land lubber. Ooh, say it ain't so! I've (thought?) heard pirates on cartoons accuse the people on the shore of being land lovers, but that's the only time I'd ever heard the use of the phrase. Does this horrible land lubber derive from a mispronunciation of land lover? Why would such become a valid dictionary entry? (M-W says the word means Landsman.)

Sorry, xara - it's endemic amongst all the sailors I have known , from childhood dinghy sailing up to thrashing through the storms off the Hook of Holland. Guess it signifies the contempt of fish for mere bicycles

xara, you mentioned in one of your posts, a hearing difficulty-- I have never heard land lover-- only land lubber. and i have no nautical experience! NY has a great harbor, the whole of the city is an archipelago, but there is very little nautical about it-- we are port city of land lubbers. maybe you have miss heard? a mondegreen of sorts?

a mondegreen of sorts?

Perhaps the word came from a mondegreen? Someone mis-heard or mis-spoke and it transformed from land lover to land lubber.

None the less, the only time I've ever heard it before was on cartoons or maybe commercials for seafood restaurants. In either case, not highly literary situations, and not directed to well educated people. Certainly not from PhD's to a scientific forum in a discussion of when plants or fungi left the oceans. I have never seen this word used in this sort of situation.

the word 'lubber' is probably of Scandinavian origin, meaning a fat, lazy fellow; this is most likely not related to the word lover. land lubber most certainly comes from land + lubber, and is meant to be disparaging.

Ah, finally! This one I know about - although not its absolute origin as a word. I note in the dictionary that, as tsuwm suggests, one meaning is a fat, lazy fellow.

"Lubber" has two other meanings, both nautical as you've probably guessed. The first (and relatively innocuous one in this case) is the lubber line on the face of a compass, used to keep a bearing between the compass needle and the direction the boat is actually headed in.

The second (and more interesting) meaning refers to a hole or hatch up through the "top" (a platform of varying width) which surrounded the mast on a square-rigged sailing ship. The top is/was used for two purposes. One, it provides an anchor for the shrouds (lines that hold up various parts of the mast and yards) - its main purpose - and, two, the tops were used for lookout purposes, usually being flat.

The hole or hatch I referred to was next to the mast, and was the easy way to get up the mast to the platform. "Real" sailors, however, went up the shrouds attached to the outside of the top and over the edge onto the top, which meant they were hanging backwards from the vertical during the last part of the climb. Lubbers were so called because they were people who couldn't face the more-than-vertical climb on the shrouds and used the lubber's hole to get to the tops. By extension, landlubbers were useless, earthbound parasites.

....
and the land lubbers lying down below, below, below
and the land lubbers lying down below
...

Jo gleefully chanted, mournfully:

....
and the land lubbers lying down below, below, below
and the land lubbers lying down below
...

And I bet you have to use your handkerchief at funerals to disguise the fact that you're laughing uncontrollably ...

For that Cap'n Ki - you get the whole thing!

Actually, I do smile sweetly on occasions when my cast iron stomach has left me the only one still happily sailing into the blue yonder while others have disappeared mysteriously - maybe not as far below as you suggest though!

The Mermaid
It was Friday morn when we set sail
And we not far from the land
When our captain he spied a mermaid so fair
With a comb and a glass in her hand

And the ocean waves do roll
And the stormy winds do blow
And we poor sailors were sitting up the top
And the landlubbers lying down below, below, below
And the landlubbers lying down below

The up spoke the captain of our gallant ship
And a well-spoken man was he
"I have married a wife in Salem town
And tonight a widow she will be"

And the ocean waves do roll
And the stormy winds do blow
And we poor sailors were sitting up the top
And the landlubbers lying down below, below, below
And the landlubbers lying down below

Then up spoke the cook of our gallant ship
And a greasy old cook was he
"I care more for my kettles and my pans
Than I do for the roaring of the sea"

And the ocean waves do roll
And the stormy winds do blow
And we poor sailors were sitting up the top
And the landlubbers lying down below, below, below
And the landlubbers lying down below

Then up spoke the cabin boy of our gallant ship
And a dirty little brat was he
"I have friends in Boston town
And they don't care a ha-penny for me"

And the ocean waves do roll
And the stormy winds do blow
And we poor sailors were sitting up the top
And the landlubbers lying down below, below, below
And the landlubbers lying down below

Then three times around went our gallant ship
And three times around went she
And the third time around she went down
And sank to the bottom of the sea

And the ocean waves do roll
And the stormy winds do blow
And we poor sailors were sitting up the top
And the landlubbers lying down below, below, below
And the landlubbers lying down below

Perhaps we should revive Jazz's request, some time agop, for a musical facilty on this board?
I would love to hear Jo actually singing that great ditty!

Oh thank you jo-- i half remembered where i had heard
And the landlubbers lying down below, below, below
And the landlubbers lying down below

but until you printed it out, i couldn't quite get it.

the clancy brothers among others have recorded it..but i am sure you would do a fine job--but I don't have speakers.-- what would be nice is, if not music, the ability to attach a file... (but that is could be dangerous..) then we could have a copy of the mp3 file.

and is meant to be disparaging.

So, even though I didn't have the right reasons, I was right that the word wasn't right for its context. Since the article was discussing the accomplisments of the organisms, you wouldn't want to insult them with a word with a somewhat negative connotation.
intuition at work here.

Jo said, ?smugly:
Actually, I do smile sweetly on occasions when my cast iron stomach has left me the only one still happily sailing into the blue yonder while others have disappeared mysteriously - maybe not as far below as you suggest though!

Hmmm. Not big on sea shanties myself, but thanks for the exposition. I assumed that the quote was from a shanty. Why is it that all shanties from the east coast of the US are kinda grim?

I don't suffer at sea myself. My first job after leaving school was as a deckhand on a crayfishing boat based at a remote port on the west coast of NZ's South Island. There was only one set of circumstances which could make me feel ill - a combination of movement, me having my head down doing something and diesel fumes.

Sailing is fun - most Kiwis do it at some time or another. Probably makes up for being flightless birds with grubby brown feathers and long beaks ...