Names are in ship shape
QUESTION How and when did areas such as ‘Dogger’, ‘Rockall’ and ‘German Bight’, used in the Shipping Forecast, get their names?
EACH of these were existing geographical features, be it sandbanks, rivers, islands or headlands, which came to represent areas used on the Shipping Forecast.
The Shipping Forecast was instituted by Robert FitzRoy, former captain of HMS Beagle, in 1861. It did not begin to resemble its current form until after World War I. Broadcast twice a day from Poldhu wireless station in Cornwall, the first radio forecast was in 1921. It was made up of a general synopsis, then meteorological readings from five weather stations: Dungeness, Scilly (both England), Holyhead (Wales), Blacksod Point (Ireland) and Stornoway (Scotland).
In 1924 the forecast was moved to a powerful UK Air Ministry transmitter based in London. The BBC became involved the following year. Many of the names that have since become iconic, such as Forties, Dogger, Thames, Wight and Shannon, made their first appearance, along with some that would later be deleted, such as Tay, Channel, Severn and Mersey.
The system was once again closed down for World War II, after which shipping volume rose greatly and the forecast was extended up to Iceland and Norway and down to the Bay of Biscay. The Met Office carved the seas into the now familiar areas, such as Rockall, Fastnet, Malin, Irish Sea, Bailey and Finisterre.
Over the years, the sea area boundaries have been adjusted to better reflect weather patterns. The giant Forties and Dogger areas, covering most of the North Sea, were reduced in 1956 to make way for Viking and Fisher. In 1984 these too were shrunk to make way for North Utsire and South Utsire, giving more detailed information to the North Sea oil fleet.
Forties, Viking, Dogger, Fisher, Sole and Bailey were all sandbanks. Forties, also called the Long Forties, was so called because it is a consistent 40 fathoms deep. Dogger Bank was first recorded in the mid-17th century and was named after a twomasted fishing boat; dogge was an old Dutch word for cod. Viking is found between Norway and the Shetland islands, once well-travelled by the Viking invaders.
Fisher, off the west coast of Denmark, was once a fine area for fishing but has since been overfished. Sole is probably named for the flatfish. Bailey, a sandbank in the North Atlantic Ocean, comes from a word meaning enclosure.
Cromarty (Gaelic for ‘crooked bay’), Forth (Gaelic Foirthe, ‘slow running’), Tyne (Celtic tin, ‘river’), Humber (debated, perhaps from a proto-Celtic word meaning ‘good river’), Thames (perhaps from the Gaelic taom, ‘to empty out’) and Shannon, named after Sionnan, granddaughter of Manannán Mac Lir (Son of the Sea), a sea deity in Celtic mythology, were named after the rivers and estuaries.
Dover (Celtic for ‘the waters’) and Portland are towns, German Bight (bight here means bay), Biscay (Basque bizkar, ‘low ridge’) and Irish Sea are seas, and Finisterre, Trafalgar and Malin are headlands. Trafalgar is of Arabic origin, Taraf al-Ghar, which means ‘cape of the cave/laurel’; Malin comes from the Irish word
Malainn, meaning ‘hillbrow’. Finisterre, ‘the end of the earth’, was renamed FitzRoy in honour of Robert FitzRoy in 2002.
North and South Utsire, Wight, Lundy, Fastnet, Rockall, Hebrides, Fair Isle, Faeroes and Southeast Iceland are islands. Utsire is named after the river Sira, an Old Norse word for ‘strong stream’. Lundy means ‘puffin island’, from the Old Norse lundi, meaning puffin. Fastnet Rock is derived from the Old Norse hvasstann ait, ‘the sharp tooth islet’. Rockall’s origin is thought to be the Gaelic sgeir
rocail, ‘the roaring sea rock’, and Fair Isle and Faeroes are both derived from the Old Danish faar
oe, ‘the sheep island’.
Tom Ridgeway, Southampton.
QUESTION
Who coined the phrase ‘no rest for the wicked’?
ORIGINATING in the Bible, ‘no rest for the wicked’ was a proverb that means evil-doers will face eternal punishment. It was popularly extended to mean that one’s work never ends.
It comes from Isiah 48:22, in the Old Testament: ‘There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked’ – and then in Chapter 57, verses 2021: ‘But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’
The phrase’s secular and humorous use dates to the 1930s, particularly its use as a title of the popular 1933 Little Orphan Annie cartoon strip by Harold Gray.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
QUESTION
What are binaural beats? Can they help you sleep?
BINAURAL beats are a form of auditory illusion perceived when two slightly different frequencies are presented to each ear. The brain perceives a third tone that is the mathematical difference between the two, creating a perceived rhythmic beat. So if one ear hears a tone at 200hz and the other at 210hz, the brain perceives a binaural beat at 10hz.
Some people claim listening to binaural beats can help induce relaxation and improve sleep quality by promoting the desired brainwave patterns. You can get phone apps that produce them. However, scientific evidence on the efficacy of binaural beats for sleep is limited.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.