Son of a gun

[1][2] Encarta Dictionary defines the term in a different way as someone "affectionately or kindly regarded.

The phrase is found in a piece of comic verse from 1726:[4] You Apollo's son, You're a son of a gun, Made up with bamboozle, You directly I'll puzzle; A 1787 correspondent to The Gentleman's Magazine suggested that the phrase originally meant "a soldier's brat".

[5] The phrase potentially has its origin in a Royal Navy direction that pregnant women aboard smaller naval vessels give birth in the space between the broadside guns, in order to keep the gangways and crew decks clear.

[6] Admiral William Henry Smyth wrote in his 1867 book, The Sailor's Word-Book: "Son of a gun, an epithet conveying contempt in a slight degree, and originally applied to boys born afloat, when women were permitted to accompany their husbands to sea; one admiral declared he literally was thus cradled, under the breast of a gun-carriage.

"[7] Alternatively, historian Brian Downing proposes that the phrase "son of a gun" originated from feudal knights' disdain for newly developed firearms and those who wielded them.