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Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:18:04 -0400

Owen Byrne writes:
> [quoting http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-shi2.htm]
> *SHIVER MY TIMBERS*
> 
> /From Tad Spencer/: "Please could you tell me where the phrase /shiver 
> my timbers/ originated?"
> 
> This is one of those supposedly nautical expressions that seem to be 
> better known through a couple of appearances in fiction than by any 
> actual sailors' usage.
> 
> It's an exclamation that may allude to a ship striking some rock or 
> other obstacle so hard that her timbers shiver, or shake, so implying a 
> calamity has occurred. It is first recorded as being used by Captain 
> Frederick Marryat in /Jacob Faithful/ in 1835: "I won't thrash you Tom. 
> Shiver my timbers if I do".

It seems implausible to me that "shiver" here means "to shake"; I don't
recall seeing the word used transitively in that sense, and web1913
lists that sense as "v. i.", or intransitive.  The transitive sense of
"shiver", which we no longer use but which people used widely in the
1800s (web1913 doesn't even list it as archaic or obsolete), means
"to shatter into splinters, normally with a blow".

Shivering a boat's timbers, of course, leaves you with no boat.
(Shivering some of them, which will happen if you hit a rock hard enough,
leaves you with a sinking boat.)

So, "Shiver my timbers if I do," can be reasonably interpreted as a more
vivid way of saying, "May I die suddenly if I do."  The interpretation
suggested by Quinion, "May my boat be damaged," neither makes as much
sense in context nor obeys the normal rules of grammar.

I've sent a copy of this to Quinion.


