{"id":106206,"date":"2016-12-27T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=106206"},"modified":"2016-12-27T11:07:53","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T16:07:53","slug":"at-sea-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/","title":{"rendered":"At Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We\u2019re away until January 3, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2016. Enjoy your holiday!<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_104985\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ships.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-104985\" class=\"wp-image-104985\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ships.png\" alt=\"Willem van de Velde II, Sea Flight, mid-1800s\u2013early 1900s, en and brush and brown and gray ink, 7&quot; x 11 1\/8&quot;.\" width=\"600\" height=\"379\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-104985\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Willem van de Velde II, <i>Sea Flight<\/i>, mid-1800s\u2013early 1900s, pen and brush and brown and gray ink, 7&#8243; x 11 1\/8&#8243;.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>On the defunct language of nautical flags.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There are forty flags in a complete set of international maritime signal flags\u2014one for each letter of the English alphabet, one for each number, and four flags called substitutes, which perform special operations.<\/p>\n<p>The flags are a way of raising a meaning to the eye, at a binoculared distance, and while most vessels still carry a set on board, the flags themselves\u2014unfurled, unraised\u2014now mainly signify that we are seafaring in the time of radio and digital and satellite and do not need to communicate so slowly or primitively, via material squares of color.<\/p>\n<p>To a ship\u2019s crew, I imagine they signify something like what a drop-down oxygen mask signifies to the commercial air traveler: if you think about it, all you realize is you don\u2019t want to think either about the situation in which you\u2019d have to use it or exactly how unable it would be to fully remedy that situation. The ships carry the flags in case they lose all other means of communication, but what set of circumstances could cause that kind of outage and also be cured by flying some flimsy flapping message?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/18\/at-sea\/\">Read More &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the defunct language of nautical flags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1096,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26379],"tags":[7161,25784,25773,4562,25777,25779,25782,11567,25771,3388,25774,13983,25778,25787,687,2809,1277,9086,25776,25770,16874,165,25783,25786,25780,9087,4429,25772,16390,25781,25785,25550,25775,790,2393],"class_list":["post-106206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2016","tag-alphabet","tag-assist","tag-at-sea","tag-beckett","tag-code","tag-code-poems","tag-communicate","tag-currency","tag-flags","tag-hannah-weiner","tag-high-seas","tag-humans","tag-international-code-of-signals","tag-international-maritime-signal-flags","tag-language","tag-life","tag-linguistics","tag-maritime","tag-messages","tag-nautical-flags","tag-phrases","tag-poetry","tag-projection","tag-rhythm","tag-romeo-and-juliet","tag-sailing","tag-samuel-beckett","tag-seas","tag-ships","tag-signal-flag","tag-squall","tag-varieties-of-obscurity","tag-vessels","tag-wind","tag-words"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Merritt Tierce on the Defunct Language of Nautical Flags<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The poetry of maritime signal flags is obvious: it\u2019s the poetry of code. Meaning: it says \u2018that\u2019 which means \u2018this\u2019.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"At Sea by Merritt Tierce\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 27, 2016 \u2013 On the defunct language of nautical flags.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-27T14:00:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-12-27T16:07:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Merritt Tierce\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Merritt Tierce\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Merritt Tierce\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f1c081357b39ab098b900a8381ea39ad\"},\"headline\":\"At Sea\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-27T14:00:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-27T16:07:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/\"},\"wordCount\":251,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ships.png\",\"keywords\":[\"alphabet\",\"assist\",\"at sea\",\"Beckett\",\"code\",\"Code Poems\",\"communicate\",\"currency\",\"flags\",\"Hannah Weiner\",\"high seas\",\"humans\",\"International Code of Signals\",\"international maritime signal flags\",\"language\",\"Life\",\"linguistics\",\"maritime\",\"messages\",\"nautical flags\",\"phrases\",\"poetry\",\"projection\",\"rhythm\",\"Romeo and Juliet\",\"sailing\",\"Samuel Beckett\",\"seas\",\"ships\",\"signal flag\",\"squall\",\"varieties of obscurity\",\"vessels\",\"wind\",\"words\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Best of 2016\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/\",\"name\":\"Merritt Tierce on the Defunct Language of Nautical Flags\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/27\/at-sea-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ships.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-27T14:00:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-27T16:07:53+00:00\",\"description\":\"The poetry of maritime signal flags is obvious: it\u2019s the poetry of code. 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