A Floundering Ship

Some time ago I heard someone speaking of a ship floundering off shore. A neighbor assured us that the ship might be foundering...but it certainly wasn't floundering. By "floundering" Ocracokers generally mean going out into the shallow waters of Pamlico Sound (either in a skiff, or wading) carrying a spear (with one or more prongs) and a light, looking to gig flounder fish in their beds on the sandy bottom.

To flounder also means to thrash about or to struggle. So a ship (especially if it were disabled in a storm) might actually be floundering off shore. If the situation deteriorated, the ship might also founder (sink).

I encounter these two words (flounder & founder) occasionally in my reading, and I always have to stop and remind myself of the difference. To flounder is to thrash or struggle; to founder is to sink. A ship can do either!

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Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter is a 1921 letter written by a former slave, Harrison Williams, to Ocracoke native, Martha Ann Howard Wahab. You can read it here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news112113.htm.