Ahoy Mateys
Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 4:09 amDidn't realize today was the National "Talk Like A Pirate Day".[8D]
Arrrh you a pirate?
It's "Talk Like a Pirate Day," so let's all practice our R's. Ready? All together now:
"Arrrh!"
No, not "yar." Some readers said "yar." That's an old nautical term now popularly used as an exclamation, but we're practicing "Arrrh!" It's a good all-around comment on pretty much anything, especially on "Talk Like a Pirate Day."
For example, what would you say if you heard today that Columbus' National Civil War Naval Museum is planning a two-day Pirate Festival for the last weekend before Halloween, with cannon firings, costume contests, concerts, pirate invasions and a "Miss Wench" competition?
"Arrrh!" Exactly.
"Talk Like a Pirate Day" was launched in 1995 by two guys named John Baur and Mark Summers, though no one knew about it until a 2002 newspaper column by humorist Dave Barry. There's now a Web site devoted to it at www.talklikeapirate.com, where you can hear Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket explain the five A's: Ahoy, avast, aye (pronounced "eye"), aye-aye ("eye-eye"), and of course, arrrh.
Port Columbus' museum (www.portcolumbus.org) started having a Halloween spooktacular two years ago, and for its ghost tour employed a "Pirates of the Chattahoochee" theme in which seamen were cursed by stolen Confederate gold.
It was so effective that some children believed the curse, says executive director Bruce Smith: At each tour's end, kids were invited to grab some gold from a bin of chocolate coins. "Most of the kids wouldn't touch it," he says.
What once was just a haunted house with a maritime theme is now an entire Pirate Festival set for Oct. 27-28 at the Lumpkin Boulevard naval museum. Smith says the big event will be announced today, and you know why:
Aye! Because it's "Talk Like a Pirate Day."
But the news leaked out. Smith says a woman called Monday, saying she heard some scuttlebutt about a big pirate party and had a $500 pirate costume to show off.
The precise course of Columbus' pirate-palooza has not been charted, but a few treasures are sure to be found, Smith says: "We know we're going to have costume contests, including the kids' contest, the adult contest and the 'Miss Wench' contest."
They envision assembling a pirate village and each night having a pirate attack, with cannon firings both from the shore and from the landing parties. They'll have the 97th Regimental String Band of St. Augustine, Fla., to play pirate music, and they'll bring in "a professional pirate group," the Tortuga Mutineers, www.thetortugamutineers.net, to sing ditties, fight duels and talk like pirates.
"It's nautical but nice," Matt Young says of talking like a pirate. The museum's education director says it helps to know nautical terms. He also recommends the generous use of "arrrh" and "matey."
Practice today, and come late October, when you're looking for some port to cut and run to with your first mate, your cabin boy and your scurvy dog, you can sail to the Pirate Festival and say:
"Arrrh
Arrrh you a pirate?
It's "Talk Like a Pirate Day," so let's all practice our R's. Ready? All together now:
"Arrrh!"
No, not "yar." Some readers said "yar." That's an old nautical term now popularly used as an exclamation, but we're practicing "Arrrh!" It's a good all-around comment on pretty much anything, especially on "Talk Like a Pirate Day."
For example, what would you say if you heard today that Columbus' National Civil War Naval Museum is planning a two-day Pirate Festival for the last weekend before Halloween, with cannon firings, costume contests, concerts, pirate invasions and a "Miss Wench" competition?
"Arrrh!" Exactly.
"Talk Like a Pirate Day" was launched in 1995 by two guys named John Baur and Mark Summers, though no one knew about it until a 2002 newspaper column by humorist Dave Barry. There's now a Web site devoted to it at www.talklikeapirate.com, where you can hear Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket explain the five A's: Ahoy, avast, aye (pronounced "eye"), aye-aye ("eye-eye"), and of course, arrrh.
Port Columbus' museum (www.portcolumbus.org) started having a Halloween spooktacular two years ago, and for its ghost tour employed a "Pirates of the Chattahoochee" theme in which seamen were cursed by stolen Confederate gold.
It was so effective that some children believed the curse, says executive director Bruce Smith: At each tour's end, kids were invited to grab some gold from a bin of chocolate coins. "Most of the kids wouldn't touch it," he says.
What once was just a haunted house with a maritime theme is now an entire Pirate Festival set for Oct. 27-28 at the Lumpkin Boulevard naval museum. Smith says the big event will be announced today, and you know why:
Aye! Because it's "Talk Like a Pirate Day."
But the news leaked out. Smith says a woman called Monday, saying she heard some scuttlebutt about a big pirate party and had a $500 pirate costume to show off.
The precise course of Columbus' pirate-palooza has not been charted, but a few treasures are sure to be found, Smith says: "We know we're going to have costume contests, including the kids' contest, the adult contest and the 'Miss Wench' contest."
They envision assembling a pirate village and each night having a pirate attack, with cannon firings both from the shore and from the landing parties. They'll have the 97th Regimental String Band of St. Augustine, Fla., to play pirate music, and they'll bring in "a professional pirate group," the Tortuga Mutineers, www.thetortugamutineers.net, to sing ditties, fight duels and talk like pirates.
"It's nautical but nice," Matt Young says of talking like a pirate. The museum's education director says it helps to know nautical terms. He also recommends the generous use of "arrrh" and "matey."
Practice today, and come late October, when you're looking for some port to cut and run to with your first mate, your cabin boy and your scurvy dog, you can sail to the Pirate Festival and say:
"Arrrh