NavList:

Jeremy wrote-

It reminds me of when I was unloading in Southampton, UK  and this
| longshoreman was telling me a joke and I couldn't for the life of me
understand
| what he was talking about because of his slang.

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British humour, as well as local accent, can tend to be impenetrable to
Americans (and to me, too, often).

But he wouldn't have recognised himself as a "longshoreman". They don't
exist, here. He would have been a "docker". Or else, one of that select band
of skilled specialists, a "stevedore", who stow a cargo below decks in such
a way that it doesn't shift whatever the weather, and on whose art the
safety of a vessel may depend. Theirs is a craft that is rapidly vanishing
in these days of bulk cargoes and containers.