There's neither a "star" nor a "board" in the ancestry of the word "starboard." It's derived from German, where the word's literal meaning was "side on which a vessel is steered." Early Germanic people propelled and steered their crafts with paddles on the right side. The rhyming "larboard" is seldom used today but refers to the left or "port" side of a ship.

Czech-born actor Herbert Lom is best-known to trivia fans as the ...

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