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This sentence found in Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds (1977) has been throwing me off:

His nose was magnificent, a true Roman nose which must have puzzled his Irish confreres, but Ireland has ever been a shipwreck coast.

The last clause sounds like an incomprehensible non-sequitur. And is “ever” even compatible with “but” in this context? Shouldn’t there be a negative of some sort? I found no idiomatic usage whatsoever associated with “shipwreck coast.” Please help!

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    I believe several interpretations are possible from a purely linguistic perspective here. I think the language is at best unusual; I'd expect '... but then' or ', because' rather than ', but' here. I think it would be better asked on Literature.SE, where critics (and associates of McCullough) who might know more context might be referenced.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 27 at 14:33
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    @EdwinAshworth I wonder whether the asker is unaware of how prolifically productive singular attributive noun alternation is with of + plural noun in English. Surely nobody would bat at eye if they read a poppy field instead of a field of poppies, or a puppy kennel instead of a kennel for puppies. After all, a shipwreck coast is nothing more than a coast of shipwrecks or a coast for shipwrecks. Although not without exceptions blocking some pairings, this alternation seems much too productive for any dictionary to ever cover all possible collocations.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Jul 27 at 20:32
  • @tchrist I mentioned what I considered the major source of confusion to be ... the (on the surface) non-sequitur OP points out.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 27 at 23:07
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    The use of 'ever' here is similar to that in 'forever' / 'for ever'
    – Kaz
    Commented Jul 28 at 14:50
  • even tighter ;-p --- Eire has e'er boat-breaker been
    – Mike M
    Commented Jul 29 at 14:38

4 Answers 4

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The sense is "His Irish friends and neighbours must have wondered where he got his Roman nose from - but there have always been a lot of shipwrecks off the coast of Ireland." The speaker guesses that one of the man's ancestors must have been an Italian sailor who survived a shipwreck.

As @Mike M says, has ever been has rather an old-fashioned, literary flavour.

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    "…but Ireland has ever been a shipwreck coast" is that grammatical?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jul 27 at 13:08
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    @Mari-LouA "ever" here is a synonym for "always," so yes, it is.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 27 at 13:13
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    @Mari-LouA I wonder why using the Present Perfect in but Ireland has always seen no end of shipwrecks off its coast seems unremarkable to me but not to you. Does pulling the adverb out front of both auxiliary and participle change your take on it as in always has seen? That’s a marked use because it doesn’t follow the normal rule to place those between auxiliary and participle, moving focus to the auxiliary. Even more markèd is adverbial inversion (common in literature but not speech): Ever/Always has Ireland seen shipwrecks. How about did see vs saw?
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Jul 27 at 20:13
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    @Mari-LouA I'm sorry. I was only asking about why you were thrown off by the Present Perfect and had been expecting a SImple Past or a bare Present Participle. That part had nothing to do with ever, at least that I can see. Have I misunderstood you?
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Jul 28 at 2:51
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    @SyedM.Sannan I think "ever" sounds slightly better. “I was ever a fighter, so---one fight more, The best and the last!"
    – Spehro 'speff' Pefhany
    Commented Jul 28 at 14:49
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"A shipwreck coast" is a slightly odd (and rather literary) way of saying "a coast where a lot of shipwrecks happen."

"Ever" means "always" here (compare German "immer"). This is also literary to the point of seeming self-consciously so. (It would be more at home in a work from the 18th or 19th century than one from 1977.)

The contrast justifying "but" is between the fact of shipwrecks and the friends' bewilderment at the Roman nose, the implication being that the friends should have thought of the shipwrecks and realized that the Roman nose wasn't so bewildering after all.

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    Yes; 'ever' is a negative-polarity item, and its rather jarring use with a positive declarative is literary.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 27 at 14:36
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    @EdwinAshworth why is "ever" a negative-polarity item? Where is the negative polarity in, e.g., "henceforward I am ever ruled by you"?
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 27 at 16:23
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    You don't think that's a literary / archaic usage? See John Lawler's seminal answer.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 27 at 17:58
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    I don't really know what I'm talking about, but it strikes me that in this context, "ever" and "never" are antonyms. "... but Ireland has never been a shipwreck coast" makes modern grammatical sense, even if reversing the meaning.
    – Digital Trauma
    Commented Jul 27 at 21:13
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    If someone said "He ever makes the effort to see his old aunt when he is in the Northeast', instead of using 'always', they would be seen as not using idiomatic English. There is a violation of the negative polarity item constraint (in this case, not ungrammatical in stylised literature). See Esipova et al. // This is giving more detail than a mere 'confined to literature / archaic works'.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 28 at 15:29
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The historical context for this is the Spanish Armada of 1588, which was soundly defeated by Drake and ended up hightailing it for home around the top of Scotland and down the West coast of Ireland. A good number of the bedraggled ships of the Armada foundered off the Irish coast, leaving many Spanish sailors to their own devices, which -- sailors being sailors -- resulted in a crop of mixed-race babies in 1589. Some of these babies had Roman noses, at least by Irish standards.

Oh, and "ever" can mean "always" in literary prose.

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    And the ships of the Armada were manned by sailors of multiple countries, including Italy.
    – TimR
    Commented Jul 28 at 11:42
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    Why the Spanish Armada specifically? It seems very odd that mention of a Roman nose would be related to a Spanish fleet just because some of the sailors could perhaps have hailed from lands that used to be Roman. Indeed, the use of ever suggests a continuous, long period of time, so it is very unlikely to be a reference to any single occurrence.
    – terdon
    Commented Jul 29 at 15:37
  • @terdon: Because there was not, is not, and never will be an "Italian armada".
    – A. I. Breveleri
    Commented Jul 29 at 20:19
  • Um. True, as far as the past goes anyway, but why would there need to be an armada? All the passage is saying is that the Irish coast has been the site of many shipwrecks over many years so people from all over may have been washed ashore. No need for any armada to be involved.
    – terdon
    Commented Jul 29 at 20:23
  • @terdon, it was never routine for a trade ship to founder off the Irish coast! But the Spanish Armada was in full retreat, in bad condition, and was met with severe weather. (Having said that, there are dissenting voices regarding the Spanish Armada explanation.)
    – TonyK
    Commented Jul 29 at 20:55
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"Ever" means "always." (As you can see in any dictionary.)

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    This answer was given two days ago, you're a bit late to the party.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jul 30 at 8:34
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    To be late to the party is an idiom, there's nothing totally weird, as you affirmed, about "He's always been late to the party."
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jul 30 at 8:38

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