May 6th, 2012
Epic Sail – part 9
This came about when I thought of how nasty the term “scurvy dog” must have been in its day. Scurvy was very unpleasant. And lots of sailors had it. Also, side note, that’s why British people are sometimes called Limeys. They prevented scurvy with limes, because of the many lands they colonized, there was little in the way of oranges or lemons.
May 7th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
The weird thing to me is how scurvy gets used as a noun and also an adjective..
also don’t all citrus fruits come from asia via the middle east? you’d think they’d have had all the various citrus fruits.. but sure enough england and limes and spain had oranges.. I think English didn’t even have a word for orange for a while, people just said like ‘yellowred’
May 14th, 2012 at 1:42 pm
The funny thing is lime’s actually contain very little vitamin C, so their cure didn’t cure them too much.