Did Pirates Really Talk Like That?

One guy is responsible for what we think pirates sounded like. For Talk Like A Pirate Day, learn how Robert Newton changed the world in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
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

(00:25):
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,

(00:45):
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

(01:07):
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

(01:29):
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.

(01:52):
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

(02:15):
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

(02:38):
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.

(03:01):
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

(03:24):
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

(03:45):
dot com