Hi.Acknowledgement to "JobMonkey-Maritime Jobs" for this Article.
Ordinary Seaman
If you’re just staring out on the maritime industry, this is the bottom rung on the ladder. In families long in boating tradition, children usually start in this job and work their way up to becoming the owner of the ship. Job duties include guarding the ship while in port, doing routine maintenance both at port and while at sea, and generally taking commands from everyone else in the ship! As an ordinary seaman, you’ll find yourself doing tasks like painting and mopping while you learn the ins and outs of running the ship.
Able Bodied Seaman
This job doesn’t imply that you are in the best physical condition to handle the job (although you do have to be in shape!). The term "able bodied" simply means that you’re a step above "ordinary." In this job, you’ll have additional duties, like taking care of the items in the cargo hold and helping with deck operations. You’ll also be doing many of the same tasks as the ordinary seamen on board.
Reg.

At the expense of sounding like a pedantic, knowall nitpicker, I would like to advance the opinion that
the term able-bodied seaman is, or was, an American translation of what AB stands for. That it is
now in universal use is no surprise. Able seaman is what I always believed it to be, and I decided to
look it up in the Oxford University Press publication "The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea" edited
by Peter Kemp, and this is what that good book says;

"A.B., the abbreviated title for the rating of able seaman, a man able to perform all the duties of a
seaman on board ship. In the old sailing ship days it was a man able to hand, reef and steer, but today,
to be an able seaman a man must have many more maritime skills than that. By some, the initials were thought
to refer to an "able-bodied" seaman, but this is not the case; they are merely the first two letter of "able."

So, what do you think? About the AB thing. I already know I'm a nitpicker

Hi Sam.
Some more for you to ponder over....
old salt - a man who serves as a sailor
Jack-tar, mariner, sea dog, seafarer, seaman, gob, Jack, tar
able seaman, able-bodied seaman - a seaman in the merchant marine; trained in special skills
bo's'n, bo'sun, boatswain, bos'n, bosun - a petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen
deckhand, roustabout - a member of a ship's crew who performs manual labor
helmsman, steerer, steersman - the person who steers a ship
bargee, bargeman, lighterman - someone who operates a barge
ship's officer, officer - a person authorized to serve in a position of authority on a vessel; "he is the officer in charge of the ship's engines"
pilot - a person qualified to guide ships through difficult waters going into or out of a harbor
crewman, sailor - any member of a ship's crew
sea lawyer - an argumentative and contentious seaman
whaler - a seaman who works on a ship that hunts whales
Reg.

Thanks Reg, but I'll leave that list for someone else to tear apart.

P.S.
You left out peggy and pants.

The Able Seaman has been replaced, in Australia, by the IR (Integrated Rating) who is trained to be multi-skilled, being able to work on deck and down-below in the Engineroom but from my experience many of the skills we had, regarding seamanship, have gone, they no longer need to splice wire-rope, that is now done ashore, even most of the painting is done at docking. The pride has gone out of the job; the seaman’s only interest now is how much they can get for doing the least amount of work.
Sad but true, most of us here relate to the time we were at sea and those days have well and truly gone.

Hi
The following site gives more info on Integrated Rating
http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/def ... CO=799411A

Reg.

My last trip to sea was on a ship crewed by what is known as IR's down under, on British ships they were called GP's ( general purpose ratings), I hated doing a stint down below in the engine room, and as this was the sign of things to come, and the rapid demise of the conventional cargo ship I decided to call it a day and come ashore, admitedly I probably acted without giving it enough thought and at times I regretted my hasty decision, but I could not imagine life at sea without such jobs as topping and lowering derricks, breaking out and stowing the jumbo, among many other tasks, and as the accomodation was very comfortable and spacious everybody seemed to stay in their individual cabins when off watch, so the No 5 hatch gatherings which in my opinion was the greatest relaxation event aboard ship also seemed to have been confined to the past, but in all fairness to the modern day sailor it was probably my inability to allow myself time to try and embrace the changes that was happening at a rate of knots that resulted in my giving up the best job on earth prematurely. stan.