Well, here be me most favorite holiday again — Talk Like a Pirate Day. Today everyone around here will be calling each other “me hearties,” be donning their finest eye patches and pulling the usual shenanigans that they do every year. Needless to say me and me wench Claire will host our usual Hornpipe ceremony and make our rounds for a pint or two of grog.
Some of our neighbors still don’t get it and keep asking me why do we need a Talk Like a Pirate Day?
Well…. because we do — I can’t exactly say why, but we do need Talk Like a Pirate Day. A lot of people think that the day romanticizes pirates, but that’s not the case. I’ve said it before — pirates were, and are, bad people. I’m not for one minute suggesting that real, honest-to-goodness pirates in any way, shape of form should be “romanticized.”
The best thing about Talk Like a Pirate Day is that it’s fun. If you’re new at it, and would like to give it a try, here are the five basic words to master — then you can move on to the “real” pirate talk.
Ahoy! — “Hello!”
Avast! — It can be used in a sense of surprise, like “Check it out,” or “No way!”
Aye! — “Why yes, I agree most heartily with everything you just said or did”
Aye aye! — “I’ll get right on that sir, as soon as I finish my grog.”
Arr! — This one is often confused with arrrgh — the sound you make when your stump your toe. Arr! can mean “yes,” “I agree,” “I’m enjoying my beer,” “I’m happy,” or lots of other things — lots of possibilities here….
Once you’ve got the basic mastered, you can move on to expanding your pirate vocabulary with terms like Beauty, Bung hole, Bilge rat, Grog. Hornpipe, Lubber and more.
But for all you newbies, just start with adding “me hearties” to the end of any sentence, like “drink up, me hearties,” or “meet me at the pub, me hearty.” Me hearty just means my friends or mates….
So give some of these expressions a whirl today and amaze your friends.
Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, me hearties!!!
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