Squared away
In any case, the phrase “square away,” meaning “to put in proper order, to tidy up,” first appeared in print in 1909, in a notably non-nautical context (“She had a head on her, Barbie had, an’ when she got squared away, she made ’em all get down an’ scratch”), and has been in wide use ever since. My sense is that while some people may think of sailing ships when they hear it, the phrase itself is more tied to the accounting use of “square” to mean “in proper order.”
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Ray:
April 18th, 2020 at 1:05 pm
You say that the usage of “square” in reference to putting accounts in order refers back to the usage of a “square” as a guiding principle. I don’t buy that connection. A guiding principle and putting things in order are two different ideas. So your basic argument that the term could have a non-nautical derivation is defeated right there. I think based on the evidence and common sense, the term most likely is rooted in the nautical usage, which in fact would probably predate most printed examples.
Ray:
April 18th, 2020 at 1:15 pm
Actually, I’ll go so far as to say that the term didn’t just probably predate printing. Given that square-rigged ships were being used as early as 5500 BCE, the term most definitely did predate printing.