Common Phrases by Max Cryer

Author:Max Cryer [Cryer, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-02-21T04:30:00+00:00

Know the ropes

The term refers to a person having knowledge of a particular system. It did not necessarily arise among sailing ship crews, though its first known occurrence in print does concern a sea captain. In Two Years Before the Mast by Richard H. Dana (1840):

The captain, who had been on the coast before and “knew the ropes,” took the steering oar.

Dana’s use of quotation marks around the expression indicates that it was known before 1840, but his book put the term into the public arena and it has been commonly used ever since.

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