Why this word is great
JACKTAR — [Noun] A sailor, especially one in the Royal Navy. From jack ("common man or sailor") + tar ("tarpaulin"), referring to sailors' use of tarred materials. Unlike "mariner" (a neutral term for any seafarer) or "gob" (a brash Americanism), "jacktar" carries the weight of oak and empire—the scent of salt and Stockholm tar clinging to a man who has known the lash of the North Atlantic and the boredom of blockade. It is the creak of a hammock in the orlop deck, the sticky black stains on sun-cracked hands, the way a man might spit into the wind and call it home—a word for those who lived and died by the whims of the sea, bound to it as surely as the tar bound their ships.