Shiver my timbers

The phrase is based on real nautical slang and is a reference to the timbers, which are the wooden support frames of a sailing ship.

In heavy seas, ships would be lifted up and pounded down so hard as to "shiver" the timbers, startling the sailors.

The Argus Newspaper Archive[4] records the use in the news event as: "As for nine French men-of-war are laying along side us jist now, and overhauling our rigging and tactics, splinter my timbers into shivers if I don't think they are all buccaneers..." would indicate the meaning of "shivers" as the breaking into wedges, small pieces or slivers.

[5] The opening of the phrase, 'shiver my..', also predates Jacob Faithful with the following lines from John O'Keeffe's 1791 comic play Wild Oats an earlier example: "Shiver my timbers" was most famously popularized by the archetypal pirate Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883).

The use of "me" instead of "my", which is common to many British regional accents, has appeared in popular culture such as with Popeye; one of his earliest cartoons from 1934 is entitled Shiver Me Timbers!