TO GO ON ACCOUNT - ORIGIN
Friday August 12th, 2011
TO GO ON ACCOUNT - ORIGIN
A term used by Privateers to describe the act of becoming a pirate. The idea being that pirates considered themselves more ‘freelance’ and therefore were going into business for themselves.It was eventually adopted by anyone who worked for themselves or shopped at a regular store that could buy stock or goods and pay later... which the pirates never did of course.
'On account' is a simple phrase meaning, 'on the tab' or 'on the (monthly) bill', with more to do with general trading than seamanship.
If you wish to comment, in the security question, 'what colour is the sea?', it won't accept the Black Sea, or Red Sea, or White Sea. For a nautical site, that's bad! (Probably won't accept 'Marine' either.)