Talk:Jack Tar

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Use in hair

The article has as one possible origin of the word:

It was common amongst seamen to fat their long hair into a ponytail and smear it with high grade tar to prevent it getting caught in the ship's equipment. This practice continued until the early 20th century

But gives no reference for it. In Two Years Before the Mast there's no reference to this practice, in fact the author talks about the sailors cleaning themselves up after tarring, which would suggest the reverse. Any references? Francis Davey (talk) 10:26, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

etymology

searching around, they etymology of "tar" for sailor is most often attributed to a shortening of "tarpaulin", where tarpaulin came from tar+palling for a waterproofed fabric. Seems to me this article currently contains too much speculation about possible etymologies. Tar was used for many things on ships, especially including sealing the joints between the wooden boards to make the hull itself, and tar would have been kept around for making waterproof repairs. So there are plenty of associations to tar including being dirty with it from working with it, and rather than have a laundry list of speculative entries, seems to me better to go simpler for just tarpaulin (and cite it!) or explain that tar is used for many waterproof applications on a wooden, rope and cloth ship. 69.201.168.196 (talk) 23:59, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Use

In "Two Years Before the Mast" (1840) Richard Henry Dana, Jr. uses "Jack" to refer to the common merchant seaman, himself included. His use is clearly affectionate and not at all derogatory. He uses "jack tar" (in lower case) once in the first chapter describing himself as a passable jack tar; however, his use of "Jack" as a generic name for sailors of his class is prevalent throughout the book.RoseHawk (talk) 14:53, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]