On Jan 4, 3:02*pm, Richard van den Berg
wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 06:56:54 -0600 brian whatcott

) wrote:
Richard van den Berg wrote:
Taffrail sounds also very much like "tafereel" and guess what Google
gave with "taffrail tafereel":http://www.dictionary.net/taffrail

Gingerbread Hatches: Luxurious quarters.

Gingerbread Work: Profusely carved decorations of a ship.

Taffrail, or Taffarel: The upper part of a ships stern, a curved
railing, the ends of which unite to the quarter-pieces.

Definitions from;

The sailors Lexicon, The Classic Source for More Than 15,000 Nautical
Terms. by Admiral W. H. Smyth (1788-1865), first issued 1867, 1996
edition, Published 2005, Hearst Books, New York. ISBN 1-58816-281-8.



Ha! Bruce has many fine qualities, among which, the ready acceptance of
a better answer than the one on which he has settled, does not show up.
* He will continue to argue the merits to unusual lengths. Watch!

Already at the start i found taffrail very much sounding like tafereel,
but my translation would be "scenery", not very shiplike.
The ongoing discussion made me put the two words in Google with a "what
the heck" with a kind of surprising answer and some history.
I'll wait if better explanations emerge ;-)

--
Richard
e-mail: vervang/replace invalid door/with NL.net