marline

The name marlin (first recorded in the 1910s) is probably shortened from marlinspike — a pointed metal tool used by sailors to separate strands of rope for splicing. The marlinspike is named after marline, a thin two-strand rope, from Dutch marlijn. The fish's long, pointed upper jaw resembled the tool so closely that fishermen gave the fish the tool's name. The word went: rope to tool to fish.

Marlins are among the fastest fish in the ocean. The Indo-Pacific blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) can reach speeds of 68 miles per hour — faster than a cheetah on land. They use their bills to slash through schools of fish, stunning prey before circling back to eat. The bill is not for spearing but for cutting — a sword, not a lance.

Ernest Hemingway made the marlin literary in The Old Man and the Sea (1952). Santiago, the old fisherman, fights an enormous marlin for three days in the Gulf Stream. The novella won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and helped Hemingway win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. The marlin in the story was probably a blue marlin. Hemingway knew them well — he fished the Gulf Stream from his home in Key West and later Cuba.

Sport fishing for marlin — billfishing — became a major recreational industry in the 20th century. Deep-sea charter boats in Florida, Hawaii, Cabo San Lucas, and Australia target marlins that can weigh over 1,000 pounds. Increasingly, catch-and-release has replaced kill fishing. The tournament-winning marlin is tagged, measured, and returned. The old man lets the fish go.