a coined variation of the phrase go by the boards, meaning to be utterly lost, neglected or forgotten. The term boards in nauticallanguage refers to the side of a wooden sailingship, and the phrase by the boards originated in the days of sailing-ships when in the height of a storm, a mast was broken and it was up to the skipper to either save it or let it go by the boards-fall over the side of the ship to utterdestruction.