Shiver My Timbers


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Posted by Ed Kiser on October 22, 2003 at 07:23:00 from 64.12.96.8 user Kisered.

I was listening to some old tapes of recordings of some old radio shows. This particular one was of The Jack Benny Show, dating from back in the World War Two days. The character, Dennis, was describing a boating incident, and he used the expression: "Shiver my Timbers" which totally startled me as I was not expecting any such.

This got my curiosity going, so I checked my copy of "Treasure Island" in ASCII TEXT format, and scanned for SHIVER. It showed that there are seven different places where the expression "Shiver my Timbers" is used. It was always "My timbers" being shivered, never anyone else's.

I am sure that this literature is the origin of where our Ransome characters originally found it, as well as quite a few other ideas, concepts, and names that they incorporated into their world, including of course the name, "Captain Flint."

Makes me wonder where else we could find the usage of this expression. Very likely such were from authors who got it from "Treasure Island" but I wonder if there are any uses of it in literature that predate the writing of that famous pirate adventure.

Ed Kiser, South Florida


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