Pirate Day

The following is a commentary I wrote about Pirate Day! I submitted it to the Utah Chronicle and hope to get it published...

Ahoy, Landlubbers and Sea Dogs! Recite thee chantey and play thine hornpipe because tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate Day! Blimey! This is no bilge or pillage, so cook up some grub and fill the rum. No need to kiss the gunner's daughter or visit Davy Jones' Locker, but to simply raise your Jolly Roger and have fun.

Talk Like a Pirate Day came to fruition on June 6, 1995, when John Baur and Mark Summers wanted to spice up a game of racquetball. During the game, the two friends began speaking in pirate jargon. "As we flailed away, we called out friendly encouragements to each other...for reasons we still don't understand, we started giving our encouragement in pirate slang," said Baur and Summers on their website talklikeapirate.com. "By the time our hour on the court was over, we realized that lapsing into pirate lingo had made the game more fun and the time pass more quickly. We decided then and there that what the world really needed was a new national holiday, Talk Like a Pirate Day."



They decided the holiday should fall on Sept. 19 of each year because that was Summers' ex-wife's birthday. For 7 years, the event remained a private joke among a few friends until Baur sent an email to Dave Barry, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from the Miami Herald, and filled him in on the holiday. Barry loved the idea and described Summers and Baur as "visionary" and "revolutionary." Barry decided to back the two friends and become the official national spokesman for the event. In doing so, Barry would reach out to his devout readers by writing an article and promoting the day. http://www.miamiherald.com/283/story/100129.html
"As an influential columnist, I have the power to 'make or break' a national day. You may recall that almost nobody celebrated Thanksgiving until I began writing about it in the 1970s," said Barry.



After the article, Talk Like a Pirate Day blew up and word began spreading all over the world. Internet sites, chat rooms, radio stations and newspapers have grown the infant holiday into a toddler but it needs more nourishment to be a full-fledged holiday.

So, spread the word yo-ho-ho! Make Talk Like a Pirate Day, a day that we can all be proud of and have fun with. Lads and Lassies can be involved. You don't' have to spend a doubloon or a piece of eight to be a part of it, all you need is a voice! For a reference guide to my pirate talk please visit http://www.tide-mark.com/pirate_dict.html.

Fair winds mateys and Godspeed!