Buccaneers, freebooters and seagoing scalawags stand ready to help the inexperienced spice up their conversations during the holiday that started as a joke and how has grown into worldwide celebrations among those who love the excuse to don cocked hats, floppy boots and eye patches and roll every “r” they speak.
Benicia’s own Donnell Rubay knows more than a little about pirate talk. She’s the author of “Emma and the Oyster Pirate,” about this city’s favorite scalawag, Jack London.
In his younger days, the famed author was, indeed, an oyster pirate.
Aboard his sloop, the Razzle-Dazzle, he would slip out at night to join other pirates in swiping the oysters from their railroad company-owned beds, then selling them at lower rates in Oakland.
After London crashed the Razzle-Dazzle, he went legal, enrolling in the Fish Patrol that hunted down oyster pirates. Later he would write about his Benicia adventures in “Tales of the Fish Patrol.”
Rubay’s time-travel book takes a contemporary young woman and puts her in the midst of 1891 Benicia, where she finds the young oyster pirate London, whom she hopes will help her return home.
“I do happen to have a favorite pirate exchange in my ‘Emma and the Oyster Pirate’ book,” Rubay said.
Early in Chapter 24, she writes how Emma has been captured by bad oyster pirates, who stow her below in their vessel. She overhears them talking on the deck above her.
“‘Set a course for Oakland, Clam,’ French Frank called out in his gruff voice. ‘Set the lines Whiskey Bob — we’ll need all the speed we can get.’
“Now I heard Clam’s scratchy voice. ‘Do we get to keep the girl, Frank?’
“‘We’ll see.’”
A few moments later, Clam answers.
“‘Heck, maybe Jack got hisself killed by the watchmen. I saw Spider back on the Razzle-Dazzle but no Jack.’
“Someone laughed — a large, full laugh. Then Whiskey Bob said: ‘Waall it could really be our lucky day. Without Jack, there’ll be more pickens’ for us — of both oysters and women!’”
London often was called the “Prince of the Oyster Pirates,” because, Rubay said, “of his way with the women.”
“An interesting part of the oyster pirate talk, to me, are the names the pirates called each other,” the author said. “The names I used in my book, for example, were actual names local oyster pirates used.” In fact, French Frank was the name used by the man who sold London his sloop.
Some modern-day pirates don’t wait until Sept. 19 to shout out pirate orders. Some use the slang all year long.
One is Phreddy Tinampay, director of operations of Kappa Studios, a full-service video and film post-production studio in Burbank.
“My favorite pirate phrase is, ‘Argh! Git to work ya mangy bilge rats!’” Tinampay said. “I often yell this at my new interns, just to see the confused looks on their faces!”
Other pirates aim their nautical barbs at youngsters, particularly during such events as the Northern California Pirate Festival, which takes place each Father’s Day weekend at Vallejo Waterfront Park.
“I be Maria Eivers-Medley,” one pirate linguist introduced herself. But she has another identity — Anne Bonney, the headmistress of the Pirate School for the Young and Impressionable that trains youngsters each year at the Vallejo pirate festival.
A dread pirate in her own right, she’s ready to help novices master a few phrases in time for International Talk Like a Pirate Day. “Though pirates speak in many languages, I will share with you some of me favorite English slang words,” she said. “I enjoy these particular because it makes the wee pirates laugh.”
She said pirates and other sailors called chicken eggs “cackle fruit.” To “hornswoggle” someone is to cheat them, Eivers-Medley said.
“Squiffy,” she explained, is “to be tipsy, as in ‘The cabin boy has gotten into the rum ration again; he appears to be a much squiffy.’”
“Dungbie” is a person’s posterior, she said, using it thusly: “Blackbeard likes his sugarcane a wee bit much; his dungbie is getting rather rotund.”
International Talk Like a Pirate Day began during a poorly played racquetball game between John Baur and Mark Summers June 6, 1995.
“It wasn’t our intention to become ‘the pirate guys,’” the two Oregonians describe on their website, www.talklikeapirate.com.
But as they flailed their racquets incompetently during the game, they began shouting encouragements and complaints in pirate slang for no reason whatsoever.
They patterned their shouts after the West Country dialect actor Robert Newton used when he portrayed several pirates, including Long John Silver in the 1950s Disney version of “Treasure Island” and the 1954 Australian “Long John Silver” movie.
Newton was chosen the day’s patron saint. Some authorities say his accent may have been historically accurate for some of the “Golden Age” pirates who came from Cornwall, England, where Newton was educated.
Summers and Baur weren’t interested in historical accuracy on the raquetball court. They said mimicking Newton’s accent made the game more fun. Deciding the world needs both more fun and another holiday, they concocted Talk Like a Pirate Day.
For the date, they chose the birthday of Summers’s former wife, for no better reason than they could remember the date.
The two assumed new identities. Summers became Cap’n Slappy, and Baur is called Ol’ Chumbucket.
Then they pestered newspaper columnist Dave Barry, who accepted their challenge to be the national spokesperson for the event, and wrote about the silliness.
The slang and its day began growing in popularity. Pirate talk has been incorporated in other websites, games and computer programs.
Aspiring pirates throughout the world have used the date as an excuse for parties, fundraisers, pub crawls and a chance to dress like a buccaneer. The holiday’s Facebook page alone has more than 76,000 followers. Both California and Michigan have recognized the holiday.
Mad Davy, a pirate from Folsom, described his best celebration of the day.
“Me own thoughts on the day of Pirate linguistics and usage be a simple one indeed,” he said. “The very best time I be have’n on the 19th o’ September would be attending me dear friend David Moorhouse an’ Debbie Moorhouse’s wedding!
“All in pirate garb as well as the fire’n of flintlocks to celebrate at the end,” he said. “That be the finest memory of the day.”This year, Mad Davy will attend the Mutiny Magazine celebration at Talderoy’s Treasures Shoppe at Studio City Tattoo, a Southern California business that has fashioned itself as the type of Old World establishment where pirates would have traded booty for weapons, jewelry and tattoos.
James Thompson, from Yonkers, Westchester County, N.Y., pulled his favorite phrase from one of the classics of pirate literature, “Treasure Island,” written by Robert Louis Stevenson.
“Draw a cutlass, him who dares, and I’ll show you the color of his insides,” the infamous Long John Silver said in Stevenson’s book.
“Delicious!” praised Thompson.
Seafaring is in his blood, he explained.
“It’s like this: I took to the sea as a teenager. Mi’ father coming over from the UK as a wee lad worked the tugs and as a longshoreman and owned a small sloop himself, so the salt-water runs through mi’ veins,” he said.
Off and on for years, he worked at a small freight company owned by friend, and he would sail up and down the coast, “delivering goods and such. Loving tales of the sea and the men who sailed them,” he said.
His “messmate” is Pirate Ivey, the San Diego author Cristi Taijeron, who has published her own series of pirate tales.
Quoting her character Sterling Bentley from her novel, “Wicked Rose,” she said her favorite pirate talk was this:
“… For in the shadow of the black flag thar be freedom for the enslaved, power for the suppressed, and a common man can receive the wages of royalty for his hard work.
“So, to many men the freedom be worth the risk of hangin’. Especially once ye learn that the men makin’ the laws are often more corrupt than the men brave enough to break them.”
Taijeron explained, “I have always loved pirates! Being a rebel soul all of my life, it’s the power and freedom expressed in a life of piracy which allures me to express it through my art.
“I’ve been drawing ships since I was young and have always loved the look of the Jolly Roger flag,” she said. “But when I began researching the history of piracy for the books I now write, that is when the true obsession took hold.”
Steven Vincent, of Milwaukee, Wis., has his own humorous take on piracy, which he wrote in his “Jollier Roger,” a blend of history and fantasy. He also launched a humorous Facebook page with the same title.
He was about to publish “Jollier Roger” when he learned about Talk Like a Pirate Day. “It was the glue which held the whole scurvy community together, and thanks to it, I was able to meet more than a few interesting sorts! For my favorite pirate phrase, that would be, ‘Ye scurvy squid!’ since it works on all occasions.”
Companies have gotten into the act. Krispy Kreme Doughnuts offers a free glazed doughnut to anyone who walks into a participating restaurant Friday and talks like pirate. Those in full pirate attire will claim a dozen. Costumes must include three elements from the chain’s list of a dozen options — eye patch, pirate hat, pirate flag in red or black, bandana, peg leg, parrot on the shoulder, pirate-style loose white shirt, knickers, leather belt, silver and gold necklaces and earrings, pirate hook and pointy black boots or ragged brown sandals. But no weapons. (See http://www.krispykreme.com/pirate for more information.)
Long John Silver’s, the restaurant that takes its name from the dread pirate and former cook from “Treasure Island,” offers a free piece of fish with the purchase of a regular meal to any who are willing to come in and utter piratical phrases on Talk Like a Pirate Day. Benicians can find a restaurant as close as 1015 Redwood St., Vallejo.
“We think this is a fitting tribute to the history of our brand,” the company’s president, Mike Kern, said.
Benicia has its own eatery that caters to freebooters and seafaring rogues. Pizza Pirate, at 72 Solano Square, will have its own specials for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
“We’ll have Talk Like a Pirate Day shirts everyone will be wearing,” said Andrea Palido, restaurant manager.
Those who want to do more than talk and eat like pirates can learn about those who sailed in the time of tall ships by taking a drive to Antioch, where the Hawaiian Chieftain, which has been used as a pirate ship in a parody video, is now anchored at the marina at 5 Marina Plaza, Antioch.Visitors can take educational tours aboard the ship at 4 p.m. today and Friday, where they can learn about ratlines and shrouds, discover that sheets aren’t sails but ropes, and learn what one can do with a belaying pin and a marlinspike.
In fact, the vessel often sells both items, as well as other maritime souvenirs and merchandise, to help cover the cost of operating the educational ship that resembles the trading packet ships that once made frequent stops in Benicia.
For those who want even more, tours start at 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, and those who visit the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority’s website (historicalseaport.org) can buy $43 tickets for a two-hour sail departing at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The vessel sails Monday for Sacramento.
JJ Nikitin, of Phoenix, Ariz., is the creator of the “Pirates Among Us” online community, and the author of “Flushed,” in which pirates meet plumbers.
“The best pirate phrases,” he said, “are the insults!”
“Here be a few zingers from me favorite pirate captain, Flatus Codswallup: ‘Vomit-inducing yeasty louse’; ‘tardy-gaited swab’;’ stop with yer pribble,’” she said.
Nikitin has more. “‘Get movin, lubber’; ‘ye wee wench’; ‘whimperin’ blimey fool of a lad barely grown out o’ his poxy pimples.’”
“The great thing is that they are all period-accurate insults from the golden age of piracy or earlier,” she said.
“Except maybe this one, ‘Ye mutinous villainous Dingleberry!’ But that’s my own crazy-fun take on pirates. … But my favorite pirate term has always been ‘Huzzah!’”