International Talk Like a Pirate Day

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International Talk Like a Pirate Day is a parodic holiday invented in 1995 by two Americans, John Baur ("Ol' Chum Bucket") and Mark Summers ("Cap'n Slappy"), who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like pirates. For example, instead of "hello," an observer of this holiday would greet his mates with "Ahoy, me hearty!" The date was selected because it is the birthday of Summers' ex-wife and would consequently be easy for him to remember.

1 Background
2 Examples of pirate sayings
- 2.1 Fictional pirate sayings
  - 2.1.1 Treasure Island
  - 2.1.2 Peter Pan
3 In popular culture
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Background

At first an inside joke between two friends, the holiday gained exposure when Baur and Summers sent a letter about their invented holiday to the American syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry in 2002. Barry liked the idea and promoted the day.^[1] There have been reports^{[citation needed]} that this holiday was being celebrated in the New Zealand town of Wainuiomata at least as early as 2000, after local media reported the existence of Talk Like A Pirate Day. Growing media coverage of the holiday after Dave Barry's column has ensured that this event is now celebrated internationally.

Baur and Summers found new fame in the 2006 season premiere episode of ABC's Wife Swap, first aired September 18, 2006. They starred in the role of "a family of pirates" along with John's wife, Tori.^[2]

Actor Robert Newton, who portrayed Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney film Treasure Island, is the patron saint of Talk Like A Pirate Day, and the specific accent that Newton used came from English West Country dialects. The association with pirates of peg-legs, parrots and treasure maps were all literary inventions of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, Treasure Island (1883). The influence of Stevenson's book on parody pirate culture cannot be overestimated.

[edit] Examples of pirate sayings

Patron Saint Robert Newton provides instruction.

Seamen in the days of sail spoke a language far apart from the norm. It was so full of technical jargon as to be nearly incomprehensible to a landsman. For example, few could follow these instructions:

Lift the skin up, and put into the bunt the slack of the clews (not too taut), the leech and foot-rope, and body of the sail; being careful not to let it get forward under or hang down abaft. Then haul your bunt well up on the yard, smoothing the skin and bringing it down well abaft, and make fast the bunt gasket round the mast, and the jigger, if there be one, to the tie.

--The Seaman's Manual (1844), by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Even more baffling are some of the phrases used by sailors in the 17th century:

If the ship go before the wind, or as they term it, betwixt two sheets, then he who conds uses these terms to him at the helm: Starboard, larboard, the helm amidships... If the ship go by a wind, or a quarter winds, they say aloof, or keep your loof, or fall not off, wear no more, keep her to, touch the wind, have a care of the lee-latch. all these do imply the same in a manner, are to bid him at the helm to keep her near the wind.

--former pirate Sir Henry Mainwaring (see Harland (1984) p.177)

[edit] Fictional pirate sayings

Use nautical talk and you just might get your mouth washed out with soap.

[edit] Treasure Island

One of the most influential books on popular notions of pirates was Treasure Island, a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, from which sample quotes include:

"Bring me one noggin of rum, now, won't you, matey."
"Avast, there!"
"Dead men don't bite."
"Shiver my timbers!" (often misquoted as "Shiver me timbers!")
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest -- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" (see Dead Man's Chest)
""There! That's what I think of ye. Before an hour's out, I'll stove in your old block house like a rum puncheon. Laugh, by thunder, laugh! Before an hour's out, ye'll laugh upon the other side. Them that die'll be the lucky ones."

The archetypical pirate grunt "Arrr!" (alternatively "Rrrr!" or "Yarrr!") first appeared in the classic 1950 Disney film Treasure Island, according to research by Mark Liberman.^[3] His article cites linguistic research that may locate the roots of this phrase much earlier.

[edit] Peter Pan

Peter Pan, with Captain Hook and his pirate ship Jolly Roger, contains numerous fictional pirate sayings:

"Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,

A-pirating we go

And if we're parted by a shot

We're sure to meet below!"

"Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,

The flag o'skull and bones

A merry hour, a hempen rope,

And hey for Davy Jones."

[edit] In popular culture

The holiday is of particular importance to Pastafarians (those who follow the teachings of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) who consider pirates to be absolute divine beings and the original Pastafarians.
Tom Smith has written and recorded the song "Talk Like a Pirate Day," the quasi-official anthem of the holiday.^[4]
In the online single-player RPG Adventure Quest there is a Talk Like a Pirate Day challenge.
In the Nintendo DS version of The Sims 2, in-game characters celebrate "Talk Like A Pirate Day" on September 19th.
On Neopet's Neoboards, during the holiday, filters automatically changed words like "see" to "spy" and "n00b" to "landlubber".
This holiday inspired the creation of the Day of the Ninja in 2003.

[edit] Notes

^ Dave Barry, "Arrrrr! Talk like a pirate—or prepare to be boarded". 8 September 2002.
^ Wife Swap, from ABC Medianet.
^ Mark Liberman, "R!?". Language log, 19 September 2005.
^ * Talk Like A Pirate Day song (MP3), by Tom Smith
- Talk Like A Pirate Day song (lyrics), by Tom Smith

[edit] References

Harland, John (1984). Seamanship in the Age of Sail. Provides a detailed account of the language used by seamen during the age of sail. ISBN 0-87021-955-3