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.
