Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. In two thousand two, syndicated columnist Dave Barry wrote an article that changed our world. He revealed that John Bauer and Mark Summers, two guys who enjoyed playing racquetball, discovered that the game was much more fun if everyone spoke in stereotypical pirates slang. And then they extrapolated that the world would be much more fun
if everyone's spoke in stereotypical pirate slang. So they designated a day for it September nineteen, and appealed to Barry to spread the good word about Talk like a Pirate Day, and Barry did. He wrote, you have the buckles, darn it, don't be afraid to swash them. And with those wise words, a tradition was born. Chances are you've seen evidence of talk like a Pirate Day. Social media hosts a plethora
of pirate puns. National chains like Long John Silver's and less thematically Crispy Cream offer free items to folks and costume. It's the one day a year that the word are is considered an acceptable alternative to yeah, But did pirates really talk? Like that the answer is not really. Our concept of piratical speech stems mainly from a series of
memorable performances by the actor Robert Newton. He appeared in several films and TV shows as a pirate, playing such characters as Long John Silver in the nineteen fifty Disney adaptation of Treasure Island. Now we did a shame to see you in such ill condition perch, give a dropper around to worm as Billy as he passes over, and the dreaded Edward Teach better known as black Beard in two is black Beard the Pirate? Now? What kind of a fool you think I be? Newton was born in Dorset, England.
Dorset is in the West Country, the southwest corner of Britain. The dialect in that region contains many of the elements we associate with pirate speech. Each For example, it's common to hear a hard are in words spoken by people from the West Country. Newton's performances became iconic. It didn't take long before his West Country accent became the de facto pirate speech. You can hear's influence in performances like Tim Curry's Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure island him.
That's what you're thinking. You're dead wrong. Jeffrey Rush's Captain Barbosa in Pirates of the Caribbean, I cannot for your Tavanians, give hope, limb that give me left for jet black Beard and even the Simpsons Captain McAllister, portrayed by Hankers Area six spells time for closing a doc eating fairly warned Beaty says I. Scholars, however, don't think his portrayal was particularly accurate. It's hard to be certain. We don't
have many historical accounts of actual pirate speech. The Golden Age of piracy predates recording by more than a century. Pirates also didn't have a habit of writing much down. Many were likely illiterate. Most of those who did write were educated before turning to their roguish lifestyle, so they're written accounts aren't much different from those of other educated people at the time. It might be more appropriate to
call September nine talk like Robert Newton day. But while it may not be historically accurate to yell, shiver me timbers or walk the plank, don't let that stop you from having a good time. Today's episode was written by Jonathan Strickland and produced by Tyler Clang. You can find brain Stuff merchandise at t public dot com slash brain stuff, and you can find more on this and lots of other swashbuckling topics at our home planet, how stuff works dot com