You may be lucky enough NOT to know today, September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day where grown people, many of them friends of mine, decide to “talk like a Pirate” all day long for no reason at all other than to be anti-social and, frankly, annoying.
My wacky and wonderful friend Gordon Davidescu is one of the unfortunate few who annually celebrates International Talk Like a Pirate Day and, while I love Gordon a lot, I must pity his want to participate in the “Arrgh Mateys” and “Have ye any them thar gold doubloons on ye, laddie?”
I have never talked like a Pirate.
I will never talk like a Pirate.
I propose today that all the sane people in the world come together for once — and from now on every September 19 — to counter the Pirate Talk Movement with a revolution of our own:
International NEVER Talk Like a Pirate Day!
International Never Talk Like a Pirate Day will restore order and normal talking while removing pegs from our legs and parrots from our shoulders that are hoisted upon petards that are not our own.
All in favor of joining me in this international mission raise your hook and say: “For Aye!”

47 Comments

  1. Will ye make us walk the plank if we don’t, captain? 🙂
    By the way, it might be later this week before I get my post to you. I’m having surgery tomorrow – outpatient gall bladder removal, nothing major – but I might not feel like completing what I started yesterday to send to you! 🙂

  2. Avast there! Ya scruvy blogging dog. Heave to or I’ll scupper yer rusty bucket and send you to meet Davy Jones himself…. Arrrr Where be my parrot?

  3. Carla!
    Please don’t even pretend Pirate talk or we’ll be taken over here and have all our timbers shivered! 😆
    Oh, no! Ric just posted! It’s started!!! 😮
    Good luck on your surgery and my good thoughts and best wishes are with you. There’s no rush on the article. Hand it over only when you feel it is finished. 🙂

  5. Who the heck thinks up days like this and a better question is who are the people who actually think it’s a good idea so put it out there for the masses? This is one day I could’ve never known about and would have been fine in not knowing about it.

  6. Hello hterry!
    I think “Be Nice to Each Other Day” would be a greater and kinder day to celebrate.
    But you have been warned!
    There are Pirates out there waiting for you today! 🙂

  11. holy crap, i couldn’t agree more! one of my co-workers is nuts about this “holiday” she is wearing a pirate vest, and has an eye patch in her pocket. god, im so annoyed. (!)

  12. Ambiguous — Yes, that’s how they do it. They Pirate talk all day everywhere they can just to annoy us! 🙂
    Lisa — You are so funny! I feel sorry your co-worker has invaded your ship! What is the antidote to a Pirate? A Vampire? The Werewolf? Find something so you can fight back! 😀

  15. I always thought it was strange how popular and romanticized pirates are. I mean, they’re the worst kind of crook — they’ll kill you for your dubloons, rape the women, make off with the children — and if that’s not enough, they’re really, really filthy. They probably stank to high heaven and they don’t have any teeth and they’re always really ugly. Even though Johnny Depp was a riot in Pirates of the caribbean, something in me revolted against the whole premise of making pirates heroes in that movie.

  17. Dave Barry is an instigator and that rhymes with alligator which is like a crocodile which is the animal that bit off Captain Hook’s hand in the story Peter Pan and that’s all I’m sayin’ pirate-wise.
    Except if I was one of them there ladies they allus captured and gave the googly eyes to I’d be a-wearin’ one of them there long flowin’ gowns and have gorgeous red hair down to my waist, doncha know?
    (I’m practicing my pirate romance novel writing skills, David. How’m I doin’?)

  19. dont be such a damn humbug that article was totally discrimatory to us pirates out there. They only let us talk like a pirate once a year and be accepted how bout cutting us some slack.

  20. Paula — Please sharpen your elbows and find our friend Mr. Barry and give him the old “one-two” and “what for!” You’re much too beautiful to be a Piratetess, but a steamy Pirate novel might be novel indeed! 🙂
    RuKsaK — Now that’s the kind of every day Pirate action that really needs to be rubbed out!
    blueskelton — Well, Matey, I’m supposin’ cuttin’ ye some slack is better’n cuttin’ off an ear, Aye!

  21. Boy I’m glad that’s over… Now may we all return to our previous discourses, each in varying degrees towards the pedantic. 🙂

  25. Degustibus non disputandum est – In matters of taste there is no arguing – so I’ll not attempt to sway you to the cause of pirate prattle. On the contrary, thanks! There’s nothing like an organized opposition to help establish something, and as one of the co-founders of International Talk Like a Pirate Day (celebrated on all seven continents, including Antarctica and we’ve got the pictures to prove it) I thank you for providing it.
    But I suggest you miss the point. People don’t like talking like piratesd in spite of it being silly and annoying – they do it BECAUSE it’s silly and annoying. It’s subversive. It’s also addictive in that once you start it’s hard to stop, and infectious, in that if you do it in a room of people it starts spreading like a bad cold. What more could you ask of a holiday than it be addictive and infectious?
    But if you don’t like it, then by all means don’t do it. But don’t expect other people to stop just because you don’t get it.
    Ol’ Chumbucket – http://www.talklikeapirate.com

  29. Oh David, that’s not fair. I never mentioned the book. In fact, I intentionally chose not to mention that we even have a book. You did that, and thank you very much, by the way. “Pirattitude!” published by New American Library. Available at fine bookstores everywhere, and as of this morning, in its second printing.
    Ol’ Chumbucket

  31. Or just guerilla marketeers!… a pirate by any othe name
    [“Guerilla Marketeers” is trade marked by the International Association of Pedantic Bloggers so don’t even think of ripping it off and making cheap copies for less than a peny offshore in China]

  33. Arrr! I love talking like a pirate. I’m sure this does annoy you but I can’t help it! Well, saying “arrr” a lot anyway, the rest I can avoid easily, but “arr” has become a habitual phrase used to signify a positive response such as:
    “You won the lottery? Arrr!”
    “You find me irresistably attractive and want my babies? And your twin sister wants to join us? Arr!”
    “The British Olympic Team won more Gold Medals than the Americans and Australians put together? Arr!”
    Sadly none of those events have happened yet. But I’m still hopeful.

  35. w0w your just a guy thats mad because you couldnt come up with a holiday, so you come up with a un original idea, sort of like corporate america, your prolly mad at kwanza too, scurvy salty sea dawg!!!!

  37. Aww, you couldn’t find anything better to argue about?
    I guess that brings up the question of why I’m spending time googling “talk like a pirate day (arrrr!)”
    1) It is an official Long John Silver’s holiday, and I want to tell everyone who works there because, frankly, I think it’s hilarious to see a bunch of grown adults finding their inner child.
    2) All my friends and I (we’re all highly educated and in our 20’s) get together and have a pirate party, consisting of pirate cake, pirate costumes, and above all, the popcorn-esque health food “Pirate’s Booty.”
    My point is that some people actually get tired of inability to use their imagination to its full extent in everyday life, which is dictated by the need for an orderly society (hmm, shopping, homework, and school! How exciting!). I don’t know about you, but I’m a certified nerd AND musician, which means that I get to use my imagination a LOT, but it’s just not enough.
    Or you can just tell yourself that we don’t have kids to terrorize yet, so we’ll take it out on you instead.
    I promise MOST of us aren’t trying to be annoying. We’re just trying to have fun. You’re big kids now, you should be able to control whether it makes you mad or not.
    Have an imaginative day, ye scurvy dogs!

  39. I don’t know if you’re on Border’s email list, but I got an email that will “shiver ye timbers!”
    “Living better, the Pirate Way” is the title, and one of the links features ways to commnicate like a pirate. There’s even a picture of a pirate swinging a sword while giving a Power Point presentation.

  40. Hi Chris!
    NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
    Ooops!
    I guess that should be:
    “AAAARRRRGGGGHHH!”
    We have to somehow find a way to blame this whole Pirate renaissance on Johnny Depp!

  41. I was listening to the radio while driving my son to his day camp at the “Y” and heard someone say that there should be a rule against making a film based on a Disney World ride. Especially one that includes pirates!
    I second that opinion.
    The first movie seemed extraordinarily long.
    I was tired when I was watching it, so I might have drifted into micro-sleep which might have made the movie seem even longer than it was.
    I’ve heard the new one is about two hours too long!

  42. Hey Chris!
    I don’t think I’ve ever watched the Depp pirate movie. I hope I never will!
    Micro-Sleep sure is interesting. Scary, too!

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