LakeCumberlandBoaters.com

Wednesday’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day is one of the only days of the year that it’s perfectly acceptable to live out your childhood swashbuckling fantasies (the other being Halloween).

It was columnist Dave Barry who dedicated a 2002 column to Talk Like a Pirate Day — then just an inside joke between two New Yorkers, John Baur and Mark Summers — and launched the international phenomenon. If you’re not skilled in the dialect of a seafaring rogue, Barry offered this sage wisdom for would-be pirates:



“To prepare for Talk Like a Pirate Day, you should practice incorporating pirate terminology into your everyday speech. For example, let’s consider a typical conversation between two co-workers in a business office:
BOB: Hi, Mary.
MARY: Hi, Bob. Have you had a chance to look at the Fennerman contract?
BOB: Yes, and I have some suggestions.
MARY: Okay, I’ll review them.
Now let’s look how this same conversation would sound on Talk Like a Pirate Day:
BOB: Avast, me beauty.
MARY: Avast, Bob. Is that a yardarm in your doubloons, or are you just glad to see me?
BOB: You are giving me the desire to haul some keel.
MARY: Arrrrr.”