by Katy Mack

Created on: September 19, 2008   Last Updated: February 11, 2011

With every movie that comes out and every Captain Sparrow quote found through out the web, societies ideas of pirates has changed a lot since when they were originally feared. Thoughts have gone from thinking that pirates are frightening, terrifying, and a danger and threat to pirates are attractive, funny, all around good guys. There is even a day where you are able to talk like a pirate to celebrate them.

September 19 was chosen to represent International Talk Like A Pirate Day. This day was invented on June 6, 1995 when two men decided to talk like pirates out of the blew. These men were John Baur and Mark Summers. Other wise known as Ol' Chum Bucket and Cap'n Slappy. They had been playing racketball when they started exclaiming their encouragement of one another in pirate language. The reason they didn't take the day June 6th for this marvelous idea is that it was already taken for the anniversary of World War II's D-Day.

Summers came up with September 19th due to the fact that it is his ex-wife's birthday and didn't have an important holiday already claimed to it. They wanted this to be the catchiest holiday in the entire year but their efforts fell short until they contacted Dave Barry in 2002. Barry had been writing a humor column that reached thousands of people. He promoted the day in his column and got people interested because everyone knows if you want an idea to fly, you've got to find the right pilot. This news reached people all over the world from Miami to Thunder bay.

What's the point of Talk Like a Pirate Day I'm sure you are wondering. It is just a silly day to distract from the shopping madness and seriousness from such as Christmas and President's Day. All you need for Talk Like A Pirate Day is a few language lessons in how to talk like a pirate and you will be set. All you need can be located here or on another website. A few words you can use on this non-conforming day are:

"Ahoy!" - means hello
"Avast" - means to stop and give attention to the one exclaiming this statement
"Aye!" - means yes or in agreeance to
"Aye Aye!" - means even more agreeance to
"Arrr!" - means almost anything such as "yes", "I'm enjoying myself", "This is bad", etc.
"Beauty" - in reference to a pretty pirate lady
"Lubber" - also spoken as "land lubber" known as land lover from the sailor's reference to a person who doesn't go to sea and stays on land

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