O – Offshore (rules are out of jurisdiction)

Dictionaries today show two meanings for Offshore, one means out to sea, at some distance from the land, but this older usage has almost been usurped apart from those who go down to the sea in ships – no the new meaning which will jump to most peoples’ minds – so often is it used on the news, is the sending of money, or basing of company registrations in “offshore” jurisdictions where they do not have to pay so much tax, where the money-laundering regulations are more lax or absent altogether.

Technically, offshore begins at the bottom of the intertidal zone – beyond which the tide never descends and uncovers the seabed. Above that line is onshore, even if it is sometimes covered with water. However I think there is, for the old world of sailing ships, and perhaps even for today’s world of sailors and ships, a sense that once loosed from the land, once offshore, the normal rules don’t apply. Not that there are no rules – the Captain’s word is the law and unwritten rules of sailor’s customs apply, but I have the sense that offshore means being beyond ordinary rules. Certainly, as a fourteen-year-old, sailing to Australia and onwards around the world in 1968, every time we left port along the way, a sense of freedom leapt in my heart, of adventure, danger, the unknown but firstly freedom.

It was Britain who really created the idea of offshore banking and offshore company registration as a way around international, financial regulations designed to stabilise the post-war economic environment. What it has become, is a way for multinational companies, the rich and criminals (heaven forbid one should conflate those three!) to avoid paying their fair share of taxes or even any tax at all. Perhaps they should be hounded towards where their money went – forbidden to set foot onshore and condemned to live out their lives offshore…

There are no Cant languages beginning with O according to Wikipedia.