The vocabulary employed in Ignacio Aldecoa's novel of the sea, Gran Sol (1957), presents a problem, not only for the North American reader, but for the average Spaniard as well, despite Eugenio de Nora's claim that, although he is not versed in nautical terminology, there are only ten words, approximately, in the entire novel with which he is not familiar (307). Opposing this opinion, Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles states that there are so many nautical terms combined with technical language and fishing jargon in Gran Sol, that future editions should include a glossary for the uninitiated.' Fernando Arrojo believes that most of the reading public would be unfamiliar with a significant number of technical expressions used in the novel (39-40). More importantly, Aldecoa himself admitted to me that his seafaring novel is filled with so many difficulties of a lexical nature that it is extremely difficult to read even for Spaniards who live on the northern coast of Spain (4, April, '66). Since this is the geographical location of the novel itself, it must be assumed that the only people in the world for whom the novel would not present difficulties would be those who are engaged directly in the fishing industry in that same area or who actually sail the fishing banks off the west coast of Ireland. This would not represent a wide reading public. On another occasion Aldecoa considers that he probably should have done as Pereda did with Sotileza, adding a vocabulary list in an appendix (11, January, '66). Aldecoa states that most of the lexical items utilized by fishermen on the Gran Sol fishing banksfishermen proceeding from the various regions along Spain's Cantabrian coastconstitute a jargon formed on the base of diverse Iberian dialects of Romance (Asturian; Galician; Santander Castilian) plus the Basque language (Ibid.). Perhaps this pooling of terms stemming from the several dialects and languages of the Spanish north coast is a practical necessity merely to have enough vocabulary to cover all the nautical concepts which might arise in deep-sea fishing; Aldecoa writes that El castellano es corto en el mar porque es agricola (Ibid). He also feels that, because of the dearth of nautical terms in Castilian, the novel might even sound better in English translation (Ibid.). Many of the vocabulary items used in Gran Solnot only those which are strictly nautical or piscatory-are listed neither in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, Williams's Spanish-English dictionary, or the bilingual dictionary composed by the sea captain, Juan Navarro Dagnino, devoted exclusively to maritime terminology. Others are found in one or two of the three dictionaries, but with definitions which conflict with each other and/or with the definitions provided by Aldecoa. The following notes are composed of the terms found in Chapters One and Eleven of Gran Sol which present this kind of difficulty, as well as a discussion of the terms, including the definitions supplied by the three dictionaries cited above, when these definitions are available, compared with those given by Aldecoa. Where possible, the applicable term in English is presented. In the case of several of these English equivalents, I am indebted to Mr. Keith A. Smith, Base Director of the United States Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Exploratory Fishing and Gear Research Base, Gloucester, Massachusetts for his cooperation on the English terminology employed in Spanish Pair trawling.2 AMURA: The RAE provides two definitions, both of which are nautical and, therefore, constitute a potential hazard for the reader: 1. Mar Parte de los costados del buque donde este empieza a estrecharse para formar la proa. 2. Mar. Cabo que hay en cada uno de los pufios bajos de las velas mayores de cruz y en el bajo de proa de todas las de cuchillo, para llevarlos hacia la proa y afirmarlos. Williams also provides two definitions, although not the same two as RAE: tack of a sail; (naut.) beam of ship at one-eighth its length, measured from bow. Navarro trans-