Are you sure?
Posted by Lewis on June 26, 2003
In Reply to: "Shake a leg" posted by P Schoultis on June 25, 2003
: : : Where did this phrase originate,, "shake a leg " so as to get someone to "hurry up " or do something quickly or right away ?
: Believe it is a British naval phrase sometimes described as a corruption of "show a leg". In sailing ship time, crewmen were permitted to have female family members on the ships. At morning muster, the non-sailor (that is females) "showed a leg"...giving the reason they were not up and about, moving to their duty station.
Not saying that you're wrong, but I thought that it was the other
way round - that it was not permitted on navy vessels to have women
on board and that show a leg /shake a leg was to demonstrate that
it was a man in the bunk. Mind you, they might both be right- one
on commercial craft, the other on military.
(Not that wives and w h o r es were not smuggled aboard sometimes -
it was never officially allowed, save for the occasional officer)