flotsam-and-jetsam

My collection of Flotsam and Jetsam:

Flotsam and Jetsam

http://victorialocal.blogspot.com

Thoughts that float through my head like so much detrius.

Flotsam and Jetsam

http://www.flotsamandjetsam.org

Discarded odds and ends.
Flotsam and Jetsam exists to show some of the objects, people and places that I have found, or have found me

Flotsam & Jetsam - Sing a song of England

http://www.musichallcds.com/var10_page.htm

BC Hilliam and Malcolm McEachern, better known as Flotsam and Jetsam formed their duo in 1926. Remembered today as the precursors of Flanders and Swann,....

Flotsam and Jetsam

http://photos.lois.co.uk/portfolio.aspx?id=4

I love the rocks, sand and seaweed of the beach, but also find the brightly coloured things that wash up rather interesting - especially the contrast in colour, surface and form between the man-made and the natural.

Flotsam & Jetsam RSS Feed

Flotsam and Jetsam: Definition thereof

Even though they became popular as metaphors among landlubbers, "flotsam" and "jetsam" were both originally nautical terms. "Flotsam" (from the Anglo-French "floteson," in turn from the Old French "floter," to float) is, strictly speaking, the wreckage of a ship (or its cargo) found floating on the surface of the sea. More generally, "flotsam" can be used for any sort of floating debris. "Flotsam" is presumed to be of accidental origin.

"Jetsam," however, is deliberate (if often not entirely voluntary) in origin. "Jetsam" is actually a form of the word "jettison," and originally referred to cargo or other goods thrown overboard to lighten a vessel in distress. (Of course, if that didn't work, the whole shebang often became "flotsam.") The current "sam" ending of "jetsam" was almost certainly modeled on "flotsam." "Flotsam" dates to the 17th century, "jetsam" to the 16th (in the intermediate form “jetson”), and the distinction between the two has historically been important in maritime salvage law.

(Definition complements of The Word Detective)