#824 Zone of Gossip

Scuttlebutt.
I’ve used the word a lot. Perhaps you have too. In the traditional sense, scuttlebutt is a synonym for gossip, as are words like chitchat and tittle-tattle. Chitchat, tittle-tattle and scuttlebutt make gossip sound lighter and more harmless, than, say, slander.
I used the word scuttlebutt the other day and was hit by one of those “why have I never wondered about that?” moments that sent me scurrying to the etymology dictionary.
Or perhaps I should say scuttling.
Scuttlebutt, on the face of it, sounds like a crayfishing tail-dragging kind of behavior. As if the entity in question was some sort of injured horseshoe crab.
Scuttling, to me, doesn’t just invoke the image of hurrying out from under some impending doom, but hurrying in a clumsy manner. And scuttlebutt seems like sliding out on your keester.
So how did such a thing evolve into another word for gossip?
It all has to do with the water cooler. We all know that the gathering around the water cooler has been depicted as the gossip zone by countless writers, political cartoonists, and comedians, the place where rumormongering hits its peak. It seems it’s always been so.
It goes back to the other usage for the word scuttle. It refers to a part of a ship. Or at least an area. Scuttles are openings in the deck on a ship. You can also scuttle a ship by cutting holes in it to sink it.
“Butt” is the rear end of something, but back in old sailing times, it was also used as a synonym for barrel or cask. A scuttle cask was a cask with a hole cut in it so sailors could get water from it. The name eventually evolved to scuttlebutt.
The sailors would get their water from the scuttlebutt. And they would gather around it and trade yarns.
Yarns were called such because they always ended with old sailors saying yarr.
Just kidding.
Scuttlebutt eventually became synonymous with gossip. And the sailors invented the seagoing equivalent of gathering around the water cooler.
America, ya gotta love it.