Ahoy, scurvy landlubber! Shiver yer timbers on Talk Like a Pirate Day
You wouldn't try those things on a normal day. But listen up, me hearties, tomorrow is no normal day. It's International Talk Like A Pirate Day, started by two Albany, Ore., guys — one a former Seattle resident — and spread around the globe by columnist Dave Barry.
Says Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers, who grew up on Beacon Hill and was fascinated by the Seafair Pirates, "We decided right off that the largest benefit of talking like a pirate is fun." Adds his cohort, John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur, "How many times in your everyday life can you swagger, can you growl?"
The "Pirate Guys" got the idea during a racquetball game in 1995, when one of the players felt a strain and growled, "Arrr!"
They spent the rest of the game hollering pirate stuff like, "That be a fine cannonade," and "Watch as I fire a broadside straight into your yardarm."
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Seafair Pirate D.C. Smith, with help from "landlubber" Jack Broom, demonstrates the proper way to talk like a pirate (:35) - For years, it remained a modest, almost private observance, until Baur last year got up the courage to e-mail Barry, who wrote about the concept in a column which opened:
"Every now and then, some visionary individuals come along with a concept that is so original and so revolutionary that your immediate reaction is: 'Those individuals should be on medication.' "
Barry plugged the event again this year, telling his readers, "If you're feeling depressed — if you think the world is in terrible shape, and one person like yourself can't make a difference — remember this: You're right. So you might as well talk like a pirate."
Now Summers and Baur are getting the attention reserved for supermodels: Interview requests from across the United States, even Ireland and Australia. And e-mails from Canada, Germany, England, South Africa and Nigeria.
Summers and Baur carry this disclaimer on their Web site, www.talklikeapirate.com: "Pirates were and are bad people. ... We aren't for one minute suggesting that real, honest-to-God pirates were in any way, shape or form worth emulating."
Although Seattle's Seafair Pirates weren't involved in the day's creation, they give it a nod of approval.
Ron Paul, a Seafair Pirate and Boeing engineer, grew up with pirate movies and remembers being enchanted with such fiercely threatening lines as, "Them's that dies will be the lucky ones."
Another Seafair Pirate, D.C. Smith, a former dialect and drama coach, has a couple of pointers for novice pirates.
Smith said the late actor Robert Newton, who played Long John Silver in the Disney classic "Treasure Island," established the tone audiences have come to expect from a pirate.
"The pirate voice is like just a gravelly cockney voice," said Smith, a graphic artist. "Ya just speaks with an East London accent if ya can manage it. Talk in the back of your throat, down in one side, down in yer cheek like yer chewin' tabacca."
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But he adds this caution, "If ya have to do it ev'ry day, all day long fer about a week, then you'll find you'll start ta ... coughin' up blood."
Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com
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