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International Talk Like A Pirate Day
Front-Ranger:
Blimey! This is a photo of Castle Stalker which is re-christened Castle AAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH for TLAPD!!
Front-Ranger:
R. was telling me about how many pirates were gay and it was like a fellowship. I'm going to look up the show Black Sails, which is supposed to be a prequel to Treasure Island, written by my ancestor R. L. Stevenson, and is an adult telling of a pirate story.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on September 19, 2018, 11:59:01 am ---R. was telling me about how many pirates were gay and it was like a fellowship. I'm going to look up the show Black Sails, which is supposed to be a prequel to Treasure Island, written by my ancestor R. L. Stevenson, and is an adult telling of a pirate story.
--- End quote ---
For the real story: Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition, by B.R. Burg.
CellarDweller:
Not to rain on the parade of the pirate talkers, but it's believed pirates didn't talk the way we think they did. At least that's what I heard on the radio on the way to work today. I decided to do a quick google search, and found a site that confirmed what the radio DJs said.
:laugh:
Apparently there's not a lot of written records from pirates, and it's believed that pirates spoke exactly the same as English-speaking merchant sailors of the time, since large numbers in both groups tended to be from riverfront neighborhoods around London.
Many of the phrases that most people think of as pirate speech today can actually be traced back to the 1950s Disney movie Treasure Island, starring Robert Newton as fictional pirate Long John Silver.
"Newton's performance—full of 'arrs,' 'shiver me timbers,' and references to landlubbers—not only stole the show, it permanently shaped pop culture's vision of how pirates looked, acted, and spoke," Woodard said.
"Afterwards, Newtonesque pirates were everywhere, from Captain Hook to Captain McCallister of the Simpsons series."
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120919-talk-like-a-pirate-day-news-history/
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on September 19, 2018, 06:57:06 pm ---Not to rain on the parade of the pirate talkers, but it's believed pirates didn't talk the way we think they did. At least that's what I heard on the radio on the way to work today. I decided to do a quick google search, and found a site that confirmed what the radio DJs said.
:laugh:
Apparently there's not a lot of written records from pirates, and it's believed that pirates spoke exactly the same as English-speaking merchant sailors of the time, since large numbers in both groups tended to be from riverfront neighborhoods around London.
Many of the phrases that most people think of as pirate speech today can actually be traced back to the 1950s Disney movie Treasure Island, starring Robert Newton as fictional pirate Long John Silver.
"Newton's performance—full of 'arrs,' 'shiver me timbers,' and references to landlubbers—not only stole the show, it permanently shaped pop culture's vision of how pirates looked, acted, and spoke," Woodard said.
"Afterwards, Newtonesque pirates were everywhere, from Captain Hook to Captain McCallister of the Simpsons series."
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120919-talk-like-a-pirate-day-news-history/
--- End quote ---
Earlier today I found an old HuffPost article that said it went back even farther than Newton, to a 1934 film of Treasure Island, where Lionel Barrymore (who did not play Long John Silver) said "Aaargh."
Newton's performance certainly "popularized" it.
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