To common language, the word is now completely obsolete.
When the polite landsman first hears it from the gaunt Nantucketer, he is
apt to set it down as one of the whaleman's self-derived savageries.
Much the same is it with many other sinewy Saxonisms of this sort,
which emigrated to New-England rocks with the noble brawn of the old
English emigrants in the time of the Commonwealth. Thus, some of
the best and furthest-descended English words--the etymological Howards
and Percys--are now democratised, nay, plebeianised--so to speak--
in the New World.
Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,
yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither
advanced nor retreated, but collectively remained in one place.
As is customary in those cases, the boats at once separated,
each making for some one lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal.
In about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon was flung;
the stricken fish darted blinding spray in our faces, and then
running away with us like light, steered straight for the heart
of the herd. Though such a movement on the part of the whale
struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented;
and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated; yet does it
present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery.
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