The Origin of "Son of a Gun"

From The Grammarphohia Blog.

“Son of a gun, an epithet conveying contempt in a slight degree, and originally applied to boys born afloat, when women were permitted to accompany their husbands to sea; one admiral declared he literally was thus cradled, under the breast of a gun-carriage.”

Although Smyth was an admiral and should have known about naval language, his lexicon didn’t appear until nearly 160 years after the expression first showed up in print.

Women did sometimes travel on British warships during the seafaring age.

In Jane Austen’s 1817 novel Persuasion, for example, we learn that Admiral Croft was regularly accompanied by his wife. (Austen knew about naval life since two of her brothers were admirals.)

So, yes, there’s a little evidence to support the naval origin of the expression, but we think “son of a gun” is simply a rhyming euphemism for “son of a bitch.”