Monday marks National Pirate Day. This means you need to brush up on your pirate vocabulary. We have heard all of the cliche phrases. How about something new and spicy? Gleaning a wealth of online materials and reflecting on the times that pirates lived, hours were spent compiling obscure words to improve pirate-speak.
* Start speaking like a pirate by imitating the grammar structure of the King James Version of the Bible. For fun, try using “hath” instead of “had.” Replace “you” with “ye.”
* Have some serious time to invest on your pirate studies coursework? The “1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue” and the “1736 Dictionary of Thieving Slang” are free PDF references on how pirates once insulted each other.
* If you lived in the 1700s, your pirate slang would have included everyday references to flyers (shoes), your keffal (a horse), znees (frost or frosty weather) and filching (to steal).
* A good resource for vile words of the past are archaic dictionaries. Extelligence.co.uk gives us helpful pirate words such as seraglio (a large harem), quixotic (caught up in the romance of unreachable ideals), and uxorious (irrationally devoted to one’s wife).
* We have all heard the term “land lubber.” Interestingly, the etymology dictionary EtymOnline.com explains that lubberwort was the name of a mythical herb that produces laziness.
* The term “blimey” is actually from 1889 and probably was not used by pirates. The meaning of this word is “God blind me.”
* When you go to work, consider calling your uniform your “long clothes.” Any pirate or sailor would call luxury clothing by this term.
* It is Friday night and you are headed out to party down. For this reason, you can say you are going to “crack Jennys tea cup.” This ancient term means to spend the night in a house of ill repute.
* Want to help people avoid stealing the pen off of your desk? Perhaps you should teach them the word “gibbet.” This was a cage that the law would chain dead pirates in to discourage piracy.
* The next time you go on your 10-minute break, consider changing your phrasing to “take a caulk.” In pirate times, sleeping on deck meant getting your clothes stripped by the tar used to caulk the deck.
* For some of us, having lunch means eating some hardtack (crackers) and hard-boiled cackle fruit (chicken eggs). However, during work hours, you should avoid rumfustian (beer scrambled with raw eggs).
* If you have a falling out with someone, try using new words to let them know you think they should walk the plank. For example, squiffy is a buffoon, nizy is a fool, and nigmennog is a very silly fellow.
* Not sure what “Wi’ a wannion” means? One of the best things about using pirate words is you can make them up as you go along. After all, pirates were riddled with diseases such as scurvy, rickets, and syphilis. If you can’t think of the right word, just make one up.