Today September 19th is National talk like a pirate day. To join in the fun today I found the rules to talkin' like a Pirate along with a few vocabulary words to begin using to sound like a real pirate. Have fun.
Startin' Rules
- Double up on all your adjectives and you'll be bountifully bombastic with your phrasing. Pirates never speak of "a big ship", they call it a "great, grand ship!" They never say never, they say "No nay ne'er!"
- Drop all your "g"'s when you speak and you'll get words like "rowin'", "sailin'" and "fightin'". Dropping all of your "v"'s will get you words like "ne'er", "e'er" and "o'er".
- Instead of saying "I am", sailors say, "I be". Instead of saying "You are", sailors say, "You be". Instead of saying, "They are", sailors say, "They be". Ne'er speak in anythin' but the present tense!
Vocabulary
- Ahoy: Hey!
- Avast: Stop!
- Aye: Yes
- Black spot: to be 'placin' the black spot' be markin' someone for death.
- Booty: treasure
- Buccanneer: a pirate who be answerin' to no man or blasted government.
- By the Powers!: an exclamation, uttered by Long John Silver in Treasure Island!
- Davy Jones' Locker: the bottom o' the sea, where the souls of dead men lie
- Doubloons: pieces of gold...
- Furner: a ship which be yer own, not one ye steal an' plunder.
- Gentlemen o' fortune: a slightly more positive term fer pirates!
- Go on the account: to embark on a piratical cruise
- Grog: A pirate's favorite drink.
- Jack: a flag or a sailor
- Jolly Roger: the skull and crossbones, the pirate flag!
- Keelhaul: a truly vicious punishment where a scurvy dog be tied to a rope and dragged along the barnacle-encrusted bottom of a ship. They not be survivin' this.
- Landlubber: "Land-lover," someone not used to life onboard a ship.
- Lass: A woman.
- Lily-livered: faint o' heart
- Matey: A shipmate or a friend.
- Me hearty: a friend or shipmate.
- Me: My.
- Pieces o' eight: pieces o' silver which can be cut into eights to be givin' small change.
- Privateer: a pirate officially sanctioned by a national power
- Scallywag: A bad person. A scoundrel.
- Scurvy dog!: a fine insult!
- Shiver me timbers!: an exclamation of surprise, to be shouted most loud.
- Sprogs: raw, untrained recruits
- Squadron: a group of ten or less warships
- Squiffy: a buffoon
- Swaggy: a scurvy cur's ship what ye be intendin' to loot!
- Swashbucklin': fightin' and carousin' on the high seas!
- Sweet trade: the career of piracy
- Thar: The opposite of "here."
- Walk the plank: this one be bloody obvious.
- Yo-ho-ho: Pirate laughter
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