Deep Six
Deep six is an American English slang term denoting the act of discarding, eliminating, or irretrievably disposing of something, often evoking burial at sea or deep submersion.[1][2] The phrase functions both as a verb, as in "to deep-six a proposal," and a noun referring to disposal or rejection itself.[3][4] Its origins trace to early 20th-century nautical slang, likely alluding to a depth of six fathoms (36 feet) in sounding calls like "by the deep six," or metaphorically to the six-foot depth of graves, emphasizing permanent removal.[5] First attested in the 1920s, the expression gained traction in military and maritime contexts before broadening into general idiom for rejecting ideas, objects, or plans, as in political or bureaucratic settings where proposals are summarily abandoned.[1] While primarily informal, it underscores a causal finality in disposal, rooted in empirical practices of overboard ejection or deep burial to prevent recovery.[2]Etymology and Primary Usage
Nautical Origins
The nautical term "deep six" derives from the practice of measuring water depth in fathoms, a unit equivalent to six feet, with "deep six" specifically denoting six fathoms or 36 feet.[6][7] In maritime tradition, this depth marked a threshold considered sufficiently offshore for safe navigation, as called out by a leadsman using a sounding line to gauge depths beyond shallower hazards.[8][7] A key application was in burial at sea, where naval and maritime protocols required a minimum water depth of six fathoms to ensure the weighted body sank far enough to avoid surfacing or drifting ashore, preventing health risks or interference with shipping lanes.[2][9] This standard, rooted in 19th- and early 20th-century seafaring customs, extended the phrase's connotation to disposal: sailors would "deep six" refuse, contraband, or remains by jettisoning them overboard at such depths.[2][10] While the exact first attestation in print remains obscure, the term's nautical usage predates its broader slang adoption, appearing in naval contexts by the early 1900s to signify irreversible discard into the ocean's depths, paralleling but distinct from terrestrial "six feet under" grave depth.[11][6] This maritime specificity underscores a causal link between practical depth requirements for safe disposal and the idiom's evolution, rather than mere metaphorical extension from land burial practices.[2][9]Slang Definition and Historical Evolution
"Deep six" is a slang expression denoting the act of discarding, rejecting, or permanently disposing of something, often by throwing it away or burying it out of sight.[1][2] The term implies thorough elimination, akin to consigning an object to a deep, irretrievable location such as the ocean floor or a grave. The phrase originates from nautical terminology, where "deep six" referred to a water depth of six fathoms—equivalent to 36 feet, as one fathom measures six feet—measured by a sounding line during navigation.[1][6] Sailors used the leadsman's call "by the deep six" to indicate this depth, the sixth mark on the line, signaling sufficiently deep water for safe passage or disposal.[1] By extension, it evolved to describe tossing refuse or performing burials at sea in such depths, ensuring items sank beyond recovery.[2] This usage emerged in maritime slang around the 1920s, with the earliest documented reference to "deep six" as a noun for a grave appearing in 1929.[6] As a verb meaning to discard or eliminate, "deep six" first appeared in print in 1944, reflecting its shift from literal depth measurement to idiomatic rejection.[1] The expression drew partial analogy to land burials "six feet under," reinforcing the connotation of finality, though primary evidence ties it to seafaring practices rather than terrestrial graves. Its broader adoption in American English occurred post-World War II, entering general slang via naval influences, and gained prominence in the 1970s during the Watergate scandal, where it appeared in recorded conversations referring to destroying evidence.[12] This exposure in media coverage helped disseminate the term beyond nautical and military contexts into everyday usage for rejecting ideas, plans, or objects.[12] Over time, it has retained its core sense of irrevocable disposal while adapting to modern scenarios, such as business decisions or personal decluttering, without significant alteration in meaning.[2]Modern Applications and Examples
In contemporary American English, "deep six" functions as idiomatic slang denoting the permanent discard, rejection, or suppression of an object, idea, proposal, or threat, often implying deliberate concealment or elimination to prevent recovery.[13] This usage persists across politics, business, and technology, where it conveys decisive action against inefficiencies, risks, or opposition, distinct from its nautical roots but retaining connotations of irretrievable disposal.[6] In political contexts, the term has been applied to efforts to neutralize perceived dangers or policies; for example, in October 2023, election officials advocated strategies to "deep-six" deepfake misinformation threatening democratic processes, emphasizing proactive regulatory and technological countermeasures.[14] Similarly, in August 2024, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described proposals for taxing unrealized capital gains as a tactic to "deep six" economic growth by eroding investment incentives and capital formation.[15] During discussions of government efficiency in October 2025, commentators proposed using executive authority to "deep-six" congressionally approved spending amid shutdown debates, highlighting tensions between legislative appropriations and administrative reforms.[16] Business and technology sectors employ "deep six" to describe purging outdated assets or strategies; in tech management, it advises organizations to "deep-six" legacy systems—such as obsolete hardware or software—to streamline operations and reduce vulnerability costs, with recommendations for audited disposal protocols to ensure data security.[17] Recent AI industry analyses, as of January 2025, have invoked the phrase punningly to warn that China's DeepSeek AI model could "deep-six" U.S. competitors by undercutting costs and performance benchmarks, potentially disrupting market dominance in generative technologies.[18] By February 2025, this narrative extended to projections that DeepSeek's advancements might "deep-six" ambitious U.S. initiatives like the Stargate AI project, citing competitive pricing as low as $0.14 per million tokens versus higher domestic rates.[19]Literature
Novels
Deep Six (1984) by Clive Cussler is the seventh installment in the Dirk Pitt adventure series, featuring marine engineer Dirk Pitt investigating a toxic chemical spill threatening Pacific marine life from a sunken freighter off Alaska's coast.[20] The narrative intertwines this environmental crisis with the discovery of a derelict "ghost ship" adrift in the northern Pacific and the fiery sinking of a luxury Soviet cruise liner, revealing a conspiracy by a Japanese industrialist and Korean smugglers aiming to destabilize the United States by assassinating the president-elect during a campaign stop.[21] Cussler incorporates the "deep six" idiom through plot elements of deliberate ocean disposal of hazardous waste and sunken vessels, echoing the term's nautical roots in discarding items to the ocean depths beyond recovery.[20] Deep Six (2016) by D.P. Lyle launches the Jake Longly thriller series, centering on former professional baseball player Jake Longly, who reluctantly assists his father Ray's private investigation firm in Gulf Shores, Alabama.[22] The story unfolds as Jake probes death threats against Hollywood producer Marshall Gregory, initially dismissed as a hoax, which escalate into a brutal murder implicating Gregory and exposing layers of deception involving a reality TV show and personal vendettas.[23] Lyle employs "deep six" metaphorically to signify burying secrets or evidence irretrievably, aligning with the protagonist's humorous yet perilous entanglement in criminal cover-ups.[22] The Deep Six (1953) by Martin Dibner depicts the harrowing experiences of U.S. Navy personnel aboard a destroyer escort during the Aleutian Islands Campaign in World War II, focusing on themes of isolation, combat fatigue, and interpersonal conflicts amid harsh Arctic conditions.[24] The title draws directly from naval slang for disposing of refuse overboard into deep water, symbolizing the sailors' expendable lives and the campaign's forgotten status in the broader war effort.[24] Dibner's account, informed by his own wartime service, highlights logistical challenges like supply shortages and psychological strain without romanticizing the theater's brutal weather and enemy engagements.[24] The Deep Six series by Julie Ann Walker, beginning with Hell or High Water (2015), follows a team of former special forces operatives running Deep Six Salvage, a front for covert operations while pursuing underwater treasure hunts from a historic lighthouse off Florida's coast.[25] Subsequent entries like Man of War (2015) and Seal of Honor (2019) blend romantic suspense with action, where the "deep six" nomenclature evokes both literal deep-sea diving for sunken galleons laden with gold and the imperative to permanently eliminate threats by consigning them to oceanic oblivion.[26] Walker's plots emphasize high-stakes recovery missions complicated by modern piracy and personal romances, grounding the idiom in practical salvage contexts.[25]Comics and Graphic Novels
In DC Comics, the Deep Six comprise a team of six fish-like New Gods engineered by Darkseid on Apokolips as aquatic terrorists, possessing superhuman strength and underwater respiration capabilities.[27] They debuted in New Gods #6 (January 1972), created by Jack Kirby, and were deployed against Darkseid's foes but eliminated during their inaugural Earth mission.[28] In Marvel Comics, Deep Six denotes a transient alliance of subaquatic protagonists organized by Namor to oppose Attuma's villainous counterpart team, manifesting across four issues of the Sub-Mariner series.[29] This configuration highlights underwater factional conflicts in the Atlantean mythos.[30] The G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comic series, published initially by Marvel Comics starting in 1982, features Deep Six as a principal character: a reclusive naval diver and operator of the S.H.A.R.C. submersible vehicle, introduced in issue #25 (July 1984).[31] He recurs in 43 issues total, embodying a solitary operative focused on deep-sea reconnaissance and combat.[31] Epic Comics' Idol #3 (1992), scripted by Gerard Jones with art by Steve Mattsson, employs "The Deep Six" as its issue title amid the series' narrative of superhuman intrigue.[32] No standalone graphic novels centered on "Deep Six" have achieved prominence in major publishers' catalogs.Film and Television
Films
The Deep Six is a 1958 American World War II drama film directed by Rudolph Maté and produced by Warner Bros.[33] It runs 105 minutes in Warnercolor with mono sound, centering on Lieutenant Alec Austin, a U.S. Navy Reserve officer from a Quaker background who faces internal conflict between his pacifist creed and combat duties aboard a destroyer.[33] The screenplay, adapted by John Kneubuhl and William Wister Haines from Martin Dibner's 1953 novel of the same name, explores themes of duty versus conscience amid naval engagements against Japanese forces.[33] Alan Ladd stars as Austin, supported by Dianne Foster as his romantic interest Susan Ames, William Bendix as Chief Petty Officer Clyde Dobson, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Lieutenant Commander Richard Dewey.[34] Released on January 15, 1958, the film received mixed critical reception, with The New York Times describing it as a "pretty good movie idea" undermined by familiar dramatic tropes and lack of innovation in portraying a pacifist in wartime.[35] Contemporary audiences noted its focus on psychological tension over action sequences, though it underperformed commercially and holds a 6.0/10 average user rating on IMDb from over 500 votes.[34] The title derives from nautical slang for burial at sea, symbolizing the protagonist's struggle to "deep six" his moral reservations in service of military necessity.[36] Lesser-known films bearing the title include Deep Six (2000), a low-budget independent drama directed by Bo Burrud featuring a plot about a criminal attempting to reconnect with a past love, sparking familial rivalry; it has limited distribution and a sparse 6.9/10 IMDb rating from 15 users.[37] A 2024 action film titled Deep Six, starring Tom Welling as the lead in a story set in Italy involving high-stakes conflict, became available for streaming platforms like Roku and Tubi, though details on production and reception remain limited as of its release.[38] These later entries lack the historical or thematic tie to the slang's origins seen in the 1958 production.Television Episodes and Series
"Deep Six" is a Canadian science fiction web series produced between 2018 and 2019, consisting of six episodes depicting a hyper-realistic scenario of space-born fighter pilots during humanity's first interstellar conflict, set 500 years in the future.[39] The narrative centers on a forward operating base following a mysterious explosion at a moon base named Deep Six, which strands a crew of 250 astronauts 12 light years from Earth, forcing them to confront survival challenges and an alien threat amid escalating odds.[40] Created and directed by Davin Lengyel, the series stars Tahmoh Penikett as a lead pilot, alongside Mika Collins and Jonathan Whitaker, emphasizing gritty, hard-science elements such as realistic space combat and isolation without faster-than-light travel.[41] Episodes include "Our Ticket Home" (premiered September 29, 2019), "Space Is Hard," and "Rocks in a Pond," released via YouTube, with the full season portraying humanity's alliance pushed to the brink in a galactic war.[42] The production received funding from the Independent Production Fund and garnered a 6.2/10 rating on IMDb from 54 user reviews, praised for its technical authenticity but limited by its independent scope.[43][39] In addition to the titular series, "Deep Six" appears in episode titles of other programs, such as the 2019 installment "SEAL Team Deep Six" from the legal drama "Proven Innocent," where Navy SEALs investigate a murder charge, invoking the term in a context of evidence disposal or military burial protocols.[44] This usage aligns with the slang's connotation of discarding incriminating material irretrievably, though the episode focuses on proving innocence rather than the phrase's etymology.[44] No other major network television episodes or series directly titled "Deep Six" have achieved comparable prominence, with references otherwise limited to niche or short-form content.Music
Bands and Artists
The Deep Six was a short-lived American pop-folk-rock ensemble from San Diego, California, active in the mid-1960s, featuring five men and one woman who released a self-titled album on Liberty Records in 1966.[45] The group's sound blended elements of folk rock and psychedelic pop, with tracks such as "Things We Say" and "Rising Sun" showcasing harmonious vocals and light instrumentation typical of the era's sunshine pop influences. Core members included vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mac Elsensohn, alongside Dann Lottermoser, Dave Gray, Dean Cannon, and Don Dunn, though the band disbanded shortly after their sole LP, which achieved limited commercial success and obscurity until later collector interest.[46] Another act bearing the name Deep Six emerged from the New York City underground scene in the 1980s, drawing from no wave and experimental influences associated with figures like composer Glenn Branca and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, as well as singer Lizzy Mercier Descloux.[47] This iteration recorded material including bass and guitar work by Phil Kline, with drumming by Doug Wygal and Trey Sabatelli; subsequent lineup changes incorporated Peter Gammie on drums post-recording.[47] Their output, issued via Coyote Records, reflected the raw, interdisciplinary ethos of downtown Manhattan's post-punk milieu, though it remained niche and tied to independent circuits rather than mainstream recognition.[47] Subsequent bands adopting the moniker include a Czech rock outfit known for rough, energetic performances, active into the 2020s with a modest following on platforms like Spotify.[48] Additionally, various regional groups—such as a classic rock ensemble with over three decades of activity and a newer Ontario-based hard rock band fusing mosh-friendly riffs—have used the name, often self-releasing or performing locally without broader discographic impact verifiable in major catalogs.[49] These later uses highlight the term's occasional appeal in rock subgenres but lack the documented historical footprint of earlier incarnations.Albums
Deep Six is a 1986 compilation album featuring six Seattle-based rock bands, marking the inaugural release (CZ-01) by C/Z Records.[50] Compiled and produced by Chris Hanzsek and Tina Casale, it was recorded over two sessions in August and September 1985 at Ironwood Studios in Seattle, with Casale funding the $2,500 production cost from her personal savings.[51] Initially pressed in a limited edition of 2,000 vinyl copies and released in March 1986, the album captured the raw, heavy sound of the emerging Seattle scene, predating Sub Pop's Sub Pop 200 and serving as an early document of what would later be termed grunge.[51] [52] Bands involved included Green River, Melvins, Malfunkshun, Skin Yard, Soundgarden, and U-Men, with track selection influenced by members like Jeff Ament and Mark Arm of Green River; Soundgarden's Kim Thayil suggested the title, drawing from naval slang for deep-sea disposal.[51] The tracklist reflects the diverse, abrasive styles of the contributors:| Track | Artist | Title | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Green River | 10,000 Things | 3:34 |
| 2 | Melvins | Scared | 2:16 |
| 3 | Melvins | Blessing the Operation | 0:40 |
| 4 | Malfunkshun | With Yo' Heart (Not Yo' Hands) | 3:50 |
| 5 | Skin Yard | Throb | 5:28 |
| 6 | Soundgarden | Heretic | 3:21 |
| 7 | Soundgarden | Tears to Forget | 2:04 |
| 8 | Soundgarden | All Your Lies | 3:50 |
| 9 | Green River | Your Own Best Friend | 6:19 |
| 10 | Melvins | Grinding Process | 2:05 |
| 11 | Melvins | She Waits | 0:37 |
| 12 | Malfunkshun | Stars-N-You | 1:44 |
| 13 | Skin Yard | The Birds | 3:52 |
| 14 | U-Men | They | 3:30 |