This Week’s Fun & Fancy Word: Cabotage!

No, it isn’t some kind of cabbage stew. And it doesn’t refer to sabotaging cab drivers. It does, however, have to do with transportation and shipping. But only if you or your goods aren’t traveling beyond their country of origin.It’s when goods or passengers are conveyed between two points in the same country by a carrier from another country. Like flying from Detroit to New York on a private plane registered in Canada, for example. And it would have to be a private jet, because that is one of the few exemptions of the restrictions regulating cabotage in the U.S. [1]

At one point, coastlines were so important to the French that they concocted a word to name the act of sailing along them. That term is caboter, a verb that gave rise to the noun cabotage, meaning transport or trade along a coast.

In the 16^th century, the French placed limits on their lucrative coastal trade, declaring that only French ships could trade in French ports. The right to conduct such trade also became known as cabotage.

Soon, other nations embraced the concept of trade restrictions. And along with it the French name for trading rights, which expanded the notion to inland trade as well.

#Fun & Fancy Words

Endnotes:

[1] Cabotage. Merrian Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cabotage

“What Is Cabotage, And how does it impact private jet charters?” https://privatejetcharter.com/what-is-cabotage/