APAD: Batten down the hatches

Meaning:

   Prepare for trouble.

 

Background:

   In his recent (September 2012) song Tempest, which recounts the story of the

   Titanic's sinking, Bob Dylan uses the lines:

 

     They battened down the hatches

     But the hatches wouldn't hold

 

   This has caused a couple of correspondents to write to me asking what `batten

   down' means. Many people may know what `batten down the hatches' means, but

   some clearly don't, so here goes...

 

   `Hatch' is one of those words with dozens of meanings in the dictionary. In

   this case we are looking at the `opening in the deck of a ship' meaning.

   Ships' hatches, more formally called hatchways, were commonplace on sailing

   ships and were normally either open or covered with a wooden grating to allow

   for ventilation of the lower decks. When bad weather was imminent, the

   hatches were covered with tarpaulin and the covering was edged with wooden

   strips, known as battens, to prevent it from blowing off. Not surprisingly,

   sailors called this `battening down'.

 

   The above was explained, probably better than I just have, in the definitive

   record of history of nautical language, Admiral W H Smyth's 1867

   encyclopaedia The Sailor's Word-Book: an alphabetical digest of nautical

   terms. He calls it `battening of the hatches' but it is clearly the same

   expression:

 

     "Battens of the hatches: Long narrow laths serving by the help of nailing

     to confine the edges of the tarpaulins, and keep them close down to the

     sides of the hatchways in bad weather."

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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There is no lack of trouble if one looks for it, especially in the news and

social media. One spends hours doom-scrolling and ends up sad, angry, and

worried, especially with hitmen at the helm good at keeping mum about their next

target to distract the mob from real problems of the country. Maybe it's going

to be China, the nation that turned hostile as they executed pedophiles there.

 

That's why one needs routines: procure, cook, and eat good food, exercise,

hydrate, read, and write. It's like running a marathon: one forgets about the

finish line and just strives to put one foot in front of the other. At bed time,

they've done the daily quota of battening down the hatches and should have a

good night's sleep.