Lots of naval terms aren’t pronounced the way you would think, e.g. boatswain and gunwale pronounced differently than they are spelled.
Boatswain sounds like bo-sun
Gunwale sounds like gun-ull
You would be amazed how many short forms are used in sailing, sometimes crippled to letter salad with apostrophes. Fo’c’sle is not alone, by far.
Boatswain -> Bosun -> Bo’s’n
But Bo’s’n uses one more character than Bosun?
Sailing is mental.
You think the sailors were passing notes mate?
It’s Worcestershire all over again…
For people reading the title and trying to pronounce this like a 3 syllable French word, Wikipedia pronunciation says it like “Fok-sull”, like “folk” minus the L and “sull” like sullied.
A cockney accent is necessary for boat terminology
What happens when the fo’c’sle falls off?
I knew that and it took all day for it to percolate that I’d learned it from Kingdom of Loathing.
Now THAT should be in the Toot Oriole
