Avast!

Ahoy maties, this be Cap'n Davy "Bloody" Flint here, a-piratin' on the distant Eastern Seas. Shiver me timbers, as tomorrow be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! This be an important celebration of piratical lingo from across the Seven Seas. To help you get into the sp'rit of all things pirate, here's a quick guide on how you can Talk Like A Pirate (all courtesy of http://www.yarr.org.uk/):

• Double up on all your adjectives and you'll be bountifully bombastic with your phrasing. Pirates never speak of "a big ship", they call it a "great, grand ship!" They never say never, they say "No nay ne'er!"
• Drop all your "g"'s when you speak and you'll get words like "rowin'", "sailin'" and "fightin'". Dropping all of your "v"'s will get you words like "ne'er", "e'er" and "o'er".
• Instead of saying "I am", sailors say, "I be". Instead of saying "You are", sailors say, "You be". Instead of saying, "They are", sailors say, "They be". Ne'er speak in anythin' but the present tense!

^ Cap'n Jack Sparrow says: "Talk Like A Pirate Day? Well, that's interesting."

Here's some pirate vocab for ye to practice:

• Ahoy: Hey!
• Avast: Stop!
• Aye: Yes
• Black spot: to be 'placin' the black spot' be markin' someone for death.
• Booty: treasure
• Buccanneer: a pirate who be answerin' to no man or blasted government.
• By the Powers!: an exclamation, uttered by Long John Silver in Treasure Island!
• Cat o' nine tails: whip for floggin' mutineers
• Corsair: a pirate who be makin' his berth in the Med-...Medi-...that sea 'tween Spain and Africa, aye!
• Davy Jones' Locker: the bottom o' the sea, where the souls of dead men lie
• Doubloons: pieces of gold...
• Fiddlers Green: the private heaven where pirates be goin' when they die.
• Furner: a ship which be yer own, not one ye steal an' plunder.
• Gentlemen o' fortune: a slightly more positive term fer pirates!
• Go on the account: to embark on a piratical cruise
• Grog: A pirate's favorite drink.
• Jack: a flag or a sailor

• Jolly Roger: the skull and crossbones, the pirate flag! ^
  
• Keelhaul: a truly vicious punishment where a scurvy dog be tied to a rope and dragged along the barnacle-encrusted bottom of a ship. They not be survivin' this.
• Landlubber: "Land-lover," someone not used to life onboard a ship.
• Lass: A woman.
• Lily-livered: faint o' heart
• Loaded to the Gunwales (pron. gunnels): drunk
• Matey: A shipmate or a friend.
• Me hearty: a friend or shipmate.
• Me: My.
• Pieces o' eight: pieces o' silver which can be cut into eights to be givin' small change.
• Privateer: a pirate officially sanctioned by a national power
• Scallywag: A bad person. A scoundrel.
• Scurvy dog!: a fine insult!
• Shiver me timbers!: an exclamation of surprise, to be shouted most loud.
• Sprogs: raw, untrained recruits
• Squadron: a group of ten or less warships
• Squiffy: a buffoon
• Swaggy: a scurvy cur's ship what ye be intendin' to loot!
• Swashbucklin': fightin' and carousin' on the high seas!
• Sweet trade: the career of piracy
• Thar: The opposite of "here."
• Walk the plank: this one be bloody obvious.
• Wench: a lady, although ye gents not be wantin' to use this around a lady who be stronger than ye.
• Wi' a wannion: wi' a curse, or wi' a vengeance. Boldly, loudly!
• Yo-ho-ho: Pirate laughter

^ If ye be havin' the game Sid Meier's Pirates!, all the dialogue be changin' on September 19th, automatic-like, ya hear?

Now meebe yer thinkin', "That Cap'n Davy! What a kidder he be! Pirates be crazy, swaggerin' fools who care only about lootin' and sackin' to their hearts content!" Well, that be bloody obvious, ya scurvy dog! But who be carin'? I be thinkin' that this world could use more pirates. Today's America was built on piracy, say I!

In the strange seas that Cap'n Davy be a-sailin', pirates be known as "kaizoku". This be soundin' much like "kazoku", the word for family. Indeed, yer "kazoku no kaizoku" be yer pirate family! Piracy in the Far East be havin' a long tradition, stretchin' back to the legend'ry wokou that raided China and Korea 'tween the 13th and 16th cent'ries. Har, those Japanese, even today they be like pirates, a-raidin' America in the 1990s and buyin' everythin' like Arabs a-buyin' ports!

By the way, ye can shed yer landlubberin', cubicle-dwellin', lawn-mowin' ways by findin' yer pirate name here, and the name of yer pirate ship here. So on September 19th, join the Sweet Trade by gettin' yerself loaded to the gunwales on grog, practice sayin' "Arrr!", "Avast!", and "Yo-ho-ho!", fly the Jolly Roger and go a-plunderin for some booty, be it Spanish doubloons or a pirate wench or three!

If ye don't, me mates an I'll be sendin ye to Davy Jones' Locker! May the wind always fill yer sails and yer plunder always be piled high as the crow's nest on yer ship. ~Fair Winds, matey!