never sick at sea

English

Etymology

A phrase that comes from a verse in "H.M.S. Pinafore", a 1878 comic opera:
Captain: I am never known to quail At the fury of a gale, and I'm never, never sick at sea!
All: What, never?
Captain: No, never!
All: What, never?
Captain: Hardly ever!

Phrase

never sick at sea

1. Having all the qualifications and abilities one could possibly ask for (or almost, anyway)
   • 1901, Ménie Muriel Dowie, Love and His Mask, page 106:

     Claude Augustus had not been in prison, so he said; was not a bigamist, was never sick at sea, and all those things they ask Tommies were all right about him, anyhow.

   • 2017, John Gallagher, Big League Babble On:

     My final though on all of my local and national on-air collegues that I've befriended and respected for all these decades: I'm not knocking them, but while most morning show hosts and radio and TV sportscasters and anchors went home to their wives and kids an hour or more outside of Toronto to play it safe, I went out. I lived it. I always answered the bell and was never sick at sea. Well, almost never.

   • 2022, Wilfred T. Grenfell, Forty Years for Labrador:

     Farmington School is forever endeared to us for having given us a sailoress secretary, who is 'never never sick at sea,' and is a member of our family—Miss Eleanor Cushman, of New Bedrord whaling ancestry.