"Plain Sailing," "Shipshape," and "Bristol Fashion": Nautical Origins of Three Common Expressions

Plain sailing, shipshape, and Bristol fashion are modern everyday expressions derived from old nautical lingo.

Plain sailing emerged as an altered form of the nautical phrase plane sailing.

Plane sailing is a simplified method of navigating a ship by ignoring the earth's curvature and considering the earth or a part of it as a horizontal plane (a level). Navigators in this system conduct ships by means of a plane chart, that is, a specially designed chart on which the meridians and parallels of latitude are represented by equidistant straight lines.

This is a quick, easy method of navigation that is quite accurate for short distances, especially near the equator.

The term plane sailing originated in the 17th century. However, it was usually spelled plain sailing during the 17th and 18th centuries, and plane sailing only since the 19th century.

Plane sailing developed a figurative sense: any course, nautical or otherwise, so simple as to leave no room for mistakes.

Today this figurative sense of the term is usually spelled plain sailing, plain being a nautical word referring to the sea and meaning open, unobstructed. Thus, sailing an uneventful course in which there is no difficulty or obstruction is plain sailing. Extended, plain sailing is any effortless progress over an unobstructed course, any simple or easy course of action.

Shipshape originated as shipshapen (17th century), shapen being a now-archaic past participle of to shape. Literally, the term referred to the overall condition of a ship and meant arranged in a manner befitting a ship, that is, trim, tidy, and orderly.

Figuratively, shipshape means trim, tidy, and orderly with respect to anything, as in "they fixed up the house till it was shipshape" and "it was a shipshape job."

A related term is Bristol fashion (19th century), an adjective phrase that means being in good order.

Bristol is a seaport in southwest central England, at the confluence of the Avon and Frome rivers. The city has been famous since ancient times for its maritime trade.

Because of its reputation as an elite shipping center, Bristol was associated with quality and dependability. That reputation evolved into a linguistic connection between Bristol and shipshape, both terms indicating being trim and orderly, as in "Everything on board 'ship-shape and Bristol fashion,'" a phrase used by Richard Henry Dana in his famous book Two Years before the Mast (1840, Oxford English Dictionary).

An 1867 sailors' wordbook helps explain the expression: "Bristol fashion and shipshape. Said when Bristol was in its palmy commercial days...and its shipping was all in proper good order" (Oxford).

Today the usual form is shipshape and Bristol fashion, an intensive of shipshape, meaning being in excellent condition.
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The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.