Wednesday, September 19, 2007

pirate speak

I hope everyone so inclined enjoyed talking like a pirate all day today. I for one did not participate as I really dislike the popularization and consequent pussy-ifying of pirates. Pirates, as I may have said before, were not cuddly or sweet. They might have been funny, but they certainly didn't walk around wearing totally rondo hats with cartoon jolly rogers.

So, in honor of the true beauty of the piratical world, join with me in some real celebrations of pirate life. Tomorrow I decree it to be slash throats and drown the women like a pirate day. The day following will be eat wormy stale bread and drink rum because there's no fresh water day. In honor of the navies of the world we will finish all of this off with sprinkle the decks with caltrops and shards of broken glass like the royal navy day.

So sharpen your swords me hearts and let the black gods that wait to welcome us all hear your shouts. It's the end of a rope for us all should we make it back alive and our eyes for the crow's belly.

3 comments:

Amanda Jayne said...

HA! I totally agree--people have started to forget that pirates were actually criminals. Instead they tend to picture a bunch of Johnny Depp look-a-likes generously letting the pretty girls go.

samuel said...

It's not the forgetting of criminality that I disagree with because we must accept that between the national navies of the time and the pirates, there wasn't necessarily a good guy or a bad guy. They could both be equally as brutal. Legality doesn't equate with rightness all the time.

If we look at the criminality alone we don't get the full picture of pirates. Pirate ships were one of the earliest of democratic institutions, and it's arguable that, generations ago, that sort of mentality led our own country to what it has become.

We won't mention the number of pirates who were in fact working by completely legal (at the time) means due solely to the fact that they had a letter of marque from a particular country versus being pirates for the sheer unadulterated hell of it.

Anonymous said...

the pirates that sail around the islands of indonesia are pretty damn scary and I would not want to run into them. certainly not the romantic figures of hollywood folk lore huh?