Flotsam and Jetsam

I've always liked the words FLOTSAM and JETSAM. But can I use them in a sentence?

Constance Hale thinks she can.

In a recent New York Times piece, Hale compared different kinds of sentences to different kinds of boats:

There are as many kinds of sentences as there are seaworthy vessels: canoes and sloops, barges and battleships, Mississippi riverboats and dinghies all-too-prone to leaks.

But some sentences aren't really sentences at all. They don't have a subject (which she calls the 'what') and a predicate (the 'so what') so they are the "impostors, flotsam and jetsam — a log heading downstream, say, or a coconut bobbing in the waves without a particular destination."


The boat metaphor falls apart a bit partway through the article when, after comparing the subject to the hull of the boat and the predicate to "the forward momentum, the twists and turns, the abrupt stops" she intermittently drops the boat metaphor and offers a new model: "I like to think of the whole sentence as a mini-narrative." In general, though I think the article is a lot of fun and offers some fun literary sentences to mull over, it may not be the best piece for teaching people how to write.

It did remind me, though, that I liked the words 'flotsam' and 'jetsam.'

Flotsam and jetsam are two categories of goods that have been cast off or otherwise detached from their ships. They are two types of what is technically called "wreck."

Flotsam (from "flotation" through "flotsen," possible influenced by the suffix -some)= goods lost from a ship which has sunk or otherwise perished, which are recoverable because they have floated.

Jetsam (from "jettison", from Latin iactionem, act of throwing, probably on the model of flotsam) = goods cast overboard in order to lighten a vessel which is in danger of sinking, even if they ultimately perish.

There are two further categories of abandoned goods:

Derelict = property which has been abandoned and deserted at sea by those who were in charge without any hope of recovering it. This includes vessels and cargo.

Lagan = goods cast overboard from a ship, which afterwards perish, buoyed so that they can be recovered later.

There are all kinds of legal issues connected with wreck, like assessing its value, ascertaining its origin and ownership, reconnecting it with its owner, etc. There is now a post in the British government (as of 1995) held by a person responsible for processing reports of recovered wreck. This post is called, yes, the Receiver of Wreck, which may be the best job title I have ever heard.

Everyone loves the words flotsam and jetsam. There are some fun cultural references I should call attention to. Flotsam and Jetsam are the names of Ursula's evil eels who are tasked with following Ariel around.

"Flotsam and Jetsam" is also the name of chapter nine of Book Three of J.R.R. Tolkien's Book The Two Towers. I haven't read the book, but apparently it is not totally clear why the chapter is called this, and whole Tolkien forums online are devoted to trying to figure it out.

"Flotsam and Jetsam" is, moreover, the name of a metal band (founded 1982) whose albums include "Doomsday for the Deceiver." They were inspired by the name of the chapter from Tolkien.

Flotsam can be a real nuisance. I once noticed a book on a friend's shelf with the following title: Flotsametics and the Floating World: How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science. The authors are Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano. Ebbesmeyer is a follower of flotsam. By following flotsam, that is, floating random stuff that has been cast off boats, he is able to understand quite a bit about ocean currents and how they work.

Flotsam and jetsam are awesam. How's that for a sentence?