What is the origin of the phrase “Davy Jones Locker”?
We knew that sailors used the phrase to refer to the bottom of the ocean, but we had no clue as to its origin. After entering the phrase “Davy Jones’ Locker” in the Yahoo! search bar, we discovered several possibilities: Michael Quinion’s excellent World Wide Words site offers a great quote from Tobias Smollet’s The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751): “This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep….” One legend suggests that a particularly fiendish pub owner named David Jones used to incapacitate hapless drinkers in his ale locker, and send them off aboard ships. Sounds like a handy way of disposing of your enemies. Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable offers an interesting linguistic take on the issue: Davy is a bas
