By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter and News Pyrate

Aye, me hearties, Wednesday be the day ye shed yer lubberly lingo and harken back to the likes of Captain Kidd, Blackbeard Calico Jack – and Jack London.

Let’s raise a mug of grog and toast “International Talk Like a Pirate Day.”

The holiday was concocted June 5, 1995, on an Oregon racquetball court where John Baur and Mark Summers, were playing an unfortunate game that became even sillier as they shouted pirate phrases of encouragement at each other’s mistakes.

As the silliness continued, the two friends sought to commemorate their antics with a special holiday. Rather than appropriate a date so close to World War II’s D-Day, June 6, the pair dubbed Sept. 19, the birthday of Summer’s former wife, “International Talk Like a Pirate Day.”

The holiday crossed the country when Miami Herald humorist Dave Barry devoted an entire column to pirate-speak and the day commemorating the dialect.

The celebration’s official website, has posted a map with the events those practicing their “Ayes” and “Arrrrs” have planned.

While the Golden Age of Piracy have passed, and black-flagged galleons with wind-filled sails no longer scour the ocean for booty, fictional pirates, from Long John Silver to Captain Hook, from Captain Jack Sparrow to the members of the Brethren Court live on.

Silver was portrayed in Walt Disney Studios’ movie version of “Treasure Island” by character actor Robert Newton, who was from the southwest of England, as was Silver.

Newton employed his own West Country dialect for the movie, rolling every “r” and uttering phrases many have come to associate with pirates – at least the ones from England. Even the common assent, “Arrr!” comes from Newton’s native countrymen, some of whom have pirates in their family lineage.

Of course, most pirates spoke the way other seafarers of the day spoke, because they first were sailors. Only secondarily were they pirates – those who mutinied against a navy ship’s captain, or the captain himself rebelling as leader of his crew against either his navy or his company, or a band of sailors or would-be sailors who went out to seek their fortune. The switch was called “going on account.”

So sailor-pirates shouted “Avast!” to catch someone’s attention. They halted someone by shouting “Belay!” They drank “grog,” which is watered-down rum, a combination less about making the rum last and more to mask the taste of, and perhaps apply an antiseptic to, spoiled water.

Many met a dire end. If not shot or skewered, they sometimes wore the “hempen halter” and “danced the hempen jig” – had a noose placed around their necks and hanged. If they died at sea, they went to Davy Jones’s locker.

Their flag, the Jolly Roger, which may be a corruption of the French for “pretty red,” usually is depicted as black, with a skull, crossed bones, crossed swords, an hour glass, dripping blood and other emblems. But at least one piratical artifact is a red flag with skull, a banner that indicated no quarter would be asked or given.

“Blow me down” and “shiver me timbers” indicated a pirate’s shock or surprise. But “walk the plank” is a relatively new pirate term, added during modern interpretation of the old scallywags. Pirates usually defeated their enemies in battle. Some gave their prisoners a chance to join their crew; others slaughtered them as a matter of course.

The word “duffle” is used to describe a type of tote bag; pirates also used it to describe their property stuffed in those bags.

Pirates ate “hard tack,” also called sea biscuits. The famous California race horse Seabiscuit, Man o’War’s grandson, got his name from the sturdy cracker, since that family of racers often wore nautical names. These were little more than dissicated flour and water, such tough crackers they often needed to be soaked in a beverage or stew before they could be eaten.

Hard tack could last. Some hard tack left over from the Civil War was packed up for use in the Spanish American War.

“Doughboys” were made of flour and oil or fat, and resembled dumplings.

Pirates also ate “salmagundi,” sometimes called Solomon Grundy, a term used in Elizabethan times for an elaborate salad, but aboard ship sometimes referred to a “whatever’s available” stew, heavily seasoned in case the ingredients’ flavors didn’t mesh.

They also ate tough salt pork and beef, and when really desperate, ate leather.

Pirate ships had no restrooms; a simple hole cut in the deck near the bow, or head, of the ship, was what served for that convenience. “The head” is still a sailor’s term for a toilet. Ironically, the “poop deck” was the elevated deck at the stern, usually above the captain’s quarters.

The word “swashbuckler” didn’t start with Errol Flynn, although his starring roles in such roles as “Captain Blood” and “The Sea Hawk” define the term for many.

It’s found as early as the 16th Century, describing someone who bangs his sword against his shield. Only later would it refer to flourishy swordplay.

Privateers were those who carried a Letter of Marque, giving them permission by the ruler of one country to plunder the ships of an enemy without fear of reprisals. Corsairs were pirates of the Mediterranean Sea, usually in the employ of the Ottoman Empire.

Buccaneers earned their name from the boucan, or barbecue, on which Hispaniolan hunters cooked strips of meat. When the Spanish tried to shove the hunters off the island, they turned pirate, attacking shps sailing to Port Royal and Tortuga in the Caribbean.

California’s most famous pirate may be Hippolyte de Bouchard, who raided the New World’s west coast from Monterey and Santa Cruz to San Juan Capistrano and Santa Barbara, along with several Central American ports. He later died on his plantation in Peru, killed by one of his servants.

In 1891, Benicia had a pirate of its own: Jack London, who bought a sloop, the Razzle Dazzle with borrowed money. His intent, after leaving a cannery job when he was 15, was to become a Benicia-based oyster pirate.

London often tied his boat up at the end of First Street, and has been described by local accounts as having partied long and well at local haunts.

Unlike those who sought gold doubloons, oyster pirates raided oyster traps, selling their booty at prices below the price of legally-obtained shellfish.

In the 1850s, the San Francisco Bay was seeded with oysters imported from the east coast for oyster beds established by railroad entrepreneurs, because the native mollusks had a less desirable flavor.

Within 30 years, the industry had been consolidated locally into a monopoly, which motivated some to “go on account” and and become poachers, or oyster pirates.

They raided the traps by night, and sold their trasure in Oakland by day, appealing to a sympathetic public that disliked the monopoly, and favored the cheaper prices charged by the pirates.

London described oyster piracy in “John Barleycorn” and, for younger readers, “The Cruise of the Dazzler.”

In the latter, London wrote of young Joe, who didn’t realize that when he joined the crew of the Dazzler that his companions “were thieves and robbers – the bay pirates, of whose wild deeds he had heard vague tales. And here he was, right in the midst of them….”

But London himself was a pirate for only about a year or so. After the Razzle Dazzle was damaged and no longer was seaworthy, London switched sides.

He joined the California Fish Patrol that policed the bay and sought to ride the waters of oyster pirates and their illegal trade.
His experiences led London to write “A Raid on the Oyster Pirates” in “Tales of the Fish Patrol.”

Decades later, London would figure in a fictional account of the era in the novel “Emma and the Oyster Pirate,” by Benicia author Donnell Rubay, who sets her story in Benicia during London’s lifetime. The book is available locally at Bookshop Benicia.