Saturday, September 19, 2009

Type Like a Pirate!

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, here's a picture of "the Corsair Ergonomic Keyboard, so useful for piratical bloggers" which was posted by Mark Lieberman on The Language Log in 2005. (Maybe everyone else on the Internet has already seen it, but it was new to me.)

There's also an amusing discussion of "pirate-speak." Did pirates really did go around saying, "Aaarrrh?" Apparently, Robert Newton's portrayal in the 1950's movie version of Treasure Island is one source of the popular perception that they did.

But in real life, both dialect from the southwest part of England, as well as Maritime Pidgin English, might have played a role in how how pirates spoke. For more details, click here.

(And a HT to Grammar Girl whose newsletter featured the link today.)

P.S. Talk Like a Pirate Day seemed like a good time to resume blogging since I was shanghaied a few months ago by life, the universe, and everything. (Well, mostly responsibilities.) I think I'm back now.

2 comments:

Sherwood said...

Well I've never seen it!

Good to see you back. Was thinking about you just the other night.

mrsdarwin said...

Now that's funny.

As to piratespeak, you might be interested in the lingo of Saint Helena, the so-remote-I-can't-tell-you-how-remote Pacific island where Napoleon spent his last days in exile.