Arrr! That’s right, it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, possibly the silliest idea ever. But admit it: You’re dyin’ t’ drink some grog and tell someone t’ go walk the plank. This silliness be about pop culture pirates, ye see, not the bloody an’ brutal pirates that still sail the seas t’day.
Pop culture pirates, it be true, are surely the gimpiest people ever. Eye patches, hook hands, peg legs, and those terribly awkward hats. Why that be, I’ve no idea. Anyone?
Crossposted at The Gimp Parade
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The local morning news show covered this, and had a couple of guys on via webcam (it looked like) in full battle array promoting it. They told the following joke:
“What do a pimp and a pirate have in common?”
“They both like to say ‘Yo Ho!'”
I always thought “Talk Like a Pirate Day” was cute idea. Our local paper did a series on pirates and had a part that pointed out how movies have shaped our perceptions of what pirates were like as opposed to how they really were.
RonF: do you really think that jokes about pimps are funny?
Ahoy, matey! I think it’s a great idea to talk like cartoon pirates for a day, because we all need a little silliness in our lives. And I also agree with mousehounde that the view of pirates has changed significantly. Could Monty Python’s Yellowbeard movie have been the start of this? Or maybe Disney’s Blackbeard? Arrr.
I am also tangentially reminded of the romanticization of Billy the Kid, who IRL was a nasty piece of work. Wasn’t there a Brady Bunch episode where Bobby gets all excited about how cool Billy the Kid was, and they bring someone in who was a survivor or the son of a survivor to talk to him about the difference between the real and the revised version? Pirates IRL don’t look like Pa Grape or even Jack Sparrow, more’s the pity.
Several adaptive sports teams in the UK use “Pirates” for their team — the Cardiff Pirates were the first wheelchair rugby team in Wales; the Bristol Pirates are a wheelchair basketball team. I wonder if it’s an intentional reference.
Actually, I was stunned to hear it on a major morning broadcast TV program, in fact. All three anchors laughed, though, even the female one.
I was talking to some of my Scouts one night, explaining to them why I would never challenge one of them for having long hair. It had happened to me when I was a Scout, and at one point my Scoutmaster and Committee Chair told me I looked like a pimp.
I had to then stop, stop their jovial comments, and explain that back then, this was considered an insult. And by rights, still should be. And then, went into a little commentary about what a pimp really is and how they get the money to buy the cars and clothes and jewelry. Sigh….
Why, ya scurvy lubbers, we real buccaneers be pure as the snow compared to the bilge-rats who called us criminals! They hired us for privateerin’ and threw us away. To the deeps with the lot of em!