The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a

The words of Carl Sandburg—“The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.”—are vast and thunderous, like the waves themselves. In them, Sandburg captures the wild spirit of the ocean: untamed, irreverent, and unconcerned with human decorum. Where the drawing rooms of the world insist on civility and polite phrases, the sea roars and crashes with a tongue that is brutal, primal, and unrelenting. It recognizes no etiquette, no courtesy, no order imposed by man. Its language is the sound of eternity, raw and beyond refinement.

The meaning at the heart of this quote is that the sea embodies truth in its harshest form. It does not flatter nor disguise. It takes without apology, it gives without explanation. The “colossal scavenger slang” Sandburg speaks of is the crude honesty of nature itself—waves that devour ships, storms that erase coastlines, tides that scatter the bones of the drowned. Such a voice is not one that polite society can bear to repeat, for it is too rough, too merciless, too filled with the reminders of mortality and impermanence.

The ancients revered and feared the sea for this very reason. The Greeks told of Poseidon, god of earthquakes and oceans, who wielded his trident in fury, ungoverned by human law. Sailors prayed to him, yet trembled when his storms rose, for his respect could not be bought nor his rage diverted. Similarly, in Norse sagas, the sea was a monstrous force, filled with serpents and unknown depths, a boundary between the world of men and the chaos beyond. Sandburg echoes this ancient fear: the sea does not bow to human will, and in its lack of respect lies its eternal dominion.

History bears witness to this truth. Consider the tragedy of the Titanic—her builders boasted that she was unsinkable, a triumph of modern engineering and human pride. Yet the sea cared nothing for such boasts. With cold indifference, the Atlantic tore her hull and swallowed her, scattering wealth and poverty alike into the same abyss. The survivors spoke of the silence of the sea afterward, a silence colder than words—a reminder that the ocean gives no regard to the hierarchies and pretenses of man.

The emotional force of Sandburg’s words comes from their defiance of illusion. Polite society often hides from the brutal truths of existence, dressing them in soft phrases and evasions. But the sea strips these away. Its language is not of pleasantries but of storms and wreckage, of hunger and erosion, of the endless cycle of life and death. To listen to the sea is to be reminded of one’s smallness, to feel the fragility of human endeavor against the weight of eternity. It is both terrifying and strangely liberating, for in its disdain lies a reminder that no one is exempt from nature’s law.

The lesson for us is clear: respect the forces beyond your control. Do not mistake politeness for protection, nor pride for security. The sea teaches humility, stripping away the illusions of power and permanence. Practically, this means living with reverence for nature, preparing for its dangers, and accepting that life is not bound to our rules. We must learn to listen not only to the polite voices of society, but also to the raw, unvarnished voices of truth that come from the earth, the storm, and the tide.

Thus, Carl Sandburg’s words endure as a hymn to the raw majesty of nature: the sea has no respect, yet it speaks with the authority of creation itself. Let us remember this when we are tempted to believe we have mastered the world. The ocean, like life, will not bend to our etiquette or our pride. It speaks its own language, and the wise do not try to silence it, but rather listen, learn, and bow to its eternal voice.