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Pirate language
If you want to talk like a pirate, you have to learn some special words!
Here are a few to get you started.
• Aarrr!: Pirate exclamation.
Done with a growl and used to emphasize the pirate's current feelings.
Best used on occasions like when you dog eats your homework, your mom
or dad tells you that you have to take a bath in the middle of your favorite
TV show, or your kid brother is bugging you
• Ahoy: Hello. For example
- Ahoy there matey! (see Matey below)
• Avast: Stop and pay attention.
Pirate moms and dads probably said this to their pirate kids who didn't
want to stop what they were doing and take a bath.
• Aye aye: yes sir. Good pirate
kids would reply "Aye aye sir" when their dads told them to
take a bath.
• Beauty: a lovely woman or
impressive boat. Sometimes you have to be careful using this term because
someone might think you are talking about one thing when you really mean
another. For example if you see some really big strong girls unloading
booty off a big fancy ship and you say "Ay, she's a beauty"
and you're talking about the ship, your friend might think you are talking
about the girls.
• Bilge rat: a very unfriendly
term. The bilge of the ship was at the bottom where gross smelly yucky
things (including rats, the stuff you didn't want to eat at dinner that
you hid in your pocket, and old gym socks) were frequently found. This
is a term you might use for that kid in school who always knows the right
answers or tries to push you around on the playground.
• Cutlass: Popular sword among
pirates
• Davy Jones' Locker: The
bottom of the sea. The final resting place for many pirates and their
ships. As far as anyone knows, there was no real person named Davy Jones.
• Doing a “Carlos”:
Named after the infamous pirate Carlos The Skull Splitter aka Charles
Speckthorpe, a practice copied by pirates to execute people wherein an
Axe was driven right down onto the skull, splitting the head wide open
like a melon.. Ohh!! messy.
• Flogging: getting whipped.
Common usage includes "Avast ye foul rugrats! If ye don't weigh anchor
now, I'll flog ye and send ye to Davy Jones' Locker!"
• Foul: Turned bad or done
badly, as in 'Foul Weather' 'Foul Dealings' or 'Foul Mouth'. Pirate moms
and dads were known to have yelled "Avast ye foul mouth rugrat!"
when their kids talked back after being told to take a bath.
• Grog: A drink that pirates
enjoyed, usually alcoholic.
• Keelhaul: Punishment. Usually
tying the sailor to a rope and dragging him under the ship from stem to
stern. This was much worse than flogging.
• Lubber: Land lover. Someone
who doesn't want to go to sea.
• Matey: Your friend. If you
yelled "Ahoy me matey" it was the same as saying "Dude,
what's happening?!" today.
• Mutiny: when everyone gangs
up and overthrows the captain. Occasionally tried in pirate school classrooms,
but rarely successful. If your mutiny failed, you would certainly get
a flogging and maybe be keelhauled.
• Ne'er-do-well: A scoundrel
or rascal. The bully on the playground at the pirate school was a fine
example of a ne'er-do-well.
• Pieces of eight: Spanish
silver coins that could actually be broken into eight pieces, or bits.
Two of these bits were a quarter of the coin, and that's where we get
the expression "two bits" for a quarter of a dollar, as in the
cheer, "Two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar ." When you counted
your booty, you wanted there to be lots of pieces of eight in it.
• Plunder: Treasure taken
from others
• Rigging: Ropes that hold
the sails in place. If your clothes dryer broke on the ship, you could
always hang the wet clothes on the rigging.
• Saucy Wench: A wild woman,
like crazy aunt Shirley who has a tattoo, pierced nose or tongue, rides
motorcycles and is always dating someone that her parents don't like.
• Tankard: A large mug. Pirate
kids wanted tankards full of chocolate milk and pirate men wanted them
full of grog.
• Wastrel: A useless man,
like your friend George's older brother who quit college, lives at home
and plays video games and chats on the internet all day and night.
• Weigh anchor: Prepare to
leave. Frequently used when it is time to go home for dinner.
• Yardarm: A long pole that
sticks out from the ship's mast. Supposedly used to hoist cargo on board
ship but also used to hang criminals or mutineers.
Pirate jokes
Q: What's a pirate's favorite mode of transportation?
A: cAARRRRGGH!
Q: What's a pirate's favorite letter of the alphabet?
A: arrrr
Q: What's a pirate's favorite kind of socks?
A: arrrrgyle
Q: What is a pirates favorite study subject?
A: arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt.
Q: What's a pirate's second-choice job?
A: an arrrrrrchitect!
A pirate
walks into his favorite restaurant and the waiter says, "Hey, I haven't
seen you in a while. What happened, you look terrible!"
"What do you mean?" the pirate replies, "I'm fine."
The waiter says, "But what about that wooden leg? You didn't have
that before."
"Well," says the pirate, "We were in a battle at sea and
a cannon ball hit my leg but the surgeon fixed me up, and I'm fine, really."
"Yeah," says the waiter, "But what about that hook? Last
time I saw you, you had both hands."
"Well," says the pirate, "We were in another battle and
we boarded the enemy ship. I was in a sword fight and my hand was cut
off but the surgeon fixed me up with this hook, and I feel great, really."
"Oh," says the waiter, "What about that eye patch? Last
time you were in here you had both eyes."
"Well," says the pirate, "One day when we were at sea,
some birds were flying over the ship. I looked up, and one of them did
his thing and it went in my eye."
"So?" replied the waiter, "what happened? You couldn't
have lost an eye just from some bird poop!"
"Well," says the pirate, "I really wasn't used to the hook
yet."
What is a pirate?
Piracy is defined as any robbery or other violent action, for private
ends and without authorization by public authority, committed on the seas
or in the air outside the normal jurisdiction of any state.
In much more simple terms, it means that anyone who takes stuff that doesn't
belong to them while in the ocean or in the air above an ocean, is a pirate.
Since oceans don't belong to any country, nobody can make rules about
what is allowed there. For this reason, all the countries of the world
have agreed that anyone from any place that catches pirates can take their
ship, bring them to a port, take the crew to court, and if they are found
guilty, to punish them.
Pirates have been around since ancient history. In the ancient Mediterranean,
piracy was often found where lots of sea trade was done. The Phoenicians,
Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians wrote about pirates. In the Middle Ages,
Vikings from the north and Moors from the south also engaged in piracy.
Frequently after wars, sailors from navy ships would end up out of work
and were recruited to work on pirate ships.
A common source of piracy was the privateer. This was a privately owned
and armed ship commissioned by a government to 'get even' with people
who stole things from them or to prey upon the enemy in time of war.
Typically, armed thugs would try to sneak on board a ship and overcome
the crew in an attempt to steal the cargo. Believe it or not, there are
still pirates around. Today, the pirate's sloop has been replaced by small
motorboats. Often ships are attacked while docked and most of the crew
is away.
Today
pirates usually use axes and long knives instead of swords. Occasionally
some may have guns. They tend not to fight hard and prefer to flee if
the crew manages to organize any kind of defense. According to the ICC
International Maritime Bureau 2004 Annual report on piracy, the number
of attacks reported worldwide through the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre
in Kuala Lumpur was 325, down from the 445 recorded in 2003.
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