Amelia’s list of pirate-y words.
(I hope you didn’t find your way here by way of the description for this blog.) If you did, you should know that this is mostly just me doing editing stuff. I decided to make blog out of it simply for fun.) I try to come to some sort of thesis at the end, but really just use this as a word bank, or maybe read my brief description of some pirates as a springboard to read about them elsewhere. (Two of them, hopefully, in my upcoming book.)
Avast ye landlubbers.
Ahoy there matey!
It it mutiny you scallywag? I’ll have you keelhauled before you walk the plank.
Drink up, me harty/ … me hearty? … me hearties?
Yo ho.
Fetch me parrot.
We must search the briny deep.
Belay that order.
Our ship has been becalmed.
Well blow me down, you might be onto something
We have permission, which makes us buccaneers, not pirates.
Heave Ho.
We need a shanty to sing at sea. “Amelia, only one of us has a good singing voice.”
We need to assign roles Captain - Justin, First Mate - Lucy, Navigator - Rudy, I’ll be a normal sailor, and that means you can be the cabin - boy Bethany, now go clean the poop-deck.
Blimey, that’s a storm.
Let’s batten down the hatches.
We have some treasure to plunder, doubloons perhaps.
Mahaps they’d award us a bounty for bringing in the scallywags.
This is a record of the words and phrases Amelia collected before hunting pirates in Biscayne Bay. Rumor has it, to this day, there is still a young reporter running around, and begging park employees for a letter of marque.
Treasure of Biscayne Bay in the works now
Editing in Progress.
I’m having more fun with that than usual, because now I get to be ridiculous.
A few fun pirate stories worth looking up.
The origin of Jose Gaspar - a probs not real pirate
Black Caesar - a highly hyperbolized pirate
Black Caesar (Henri Caesar) - yes there were, allegedly, 2, but the sequel might be book only.
(I won’t say anything else about the men above because I’m writing about them now.)
Francis Drake- as a privateer, Spain labeled this explorer a pirate. More well known for circumnavigating the globe, he did a lot of raiding and attacking for an explorer, but he did a lot of exploring too. Oddly, nothing of his own accounts survives, only stories told by those who came after him.
Amaro Pargo - What’s the difference between a corsair and a privateer, beyond the origin of thier letters of mark? “Some consider him the Francis Drake of Spain” this corsair from the Canary Islands was also a famous raider/pirate, who donated a lot of his wealth to the poor. His home on Tenerife island is still a place people can visit. However, the search for a legendary treasure, and time, have left it in Ruin.
Blackbeard - Duh. When you mention pirates, several names may come up, but this name often floats to the top. Edward Teach (Thatch) made quite the name for himself. Perhaps because he raided and pirated and - like many pirates- left legends of treasure behind. Perhaps because he had a habit of setting his beard on fire. (a narratively interesting way of putting it, not 100% accurate, look it up for yourself.) His name/names lives on.
Ching Shih, who needs names, legends, or letters of marque when you can control a whole fleet of pirates, fight off navies, and then get pardoned to retire in luxury? Inheriting her husband’s pirate fleet, Ching Shih expanded it, with her new husband ruled it, blockaded a bay, and got pardoned to live out her life in comfort and wealth.
Benjamin Hornigold, pirate turned pirate hunter. He gave Blackbeard his former command, and once pardoned was asked to hunt him down. While he was a pirate, he was also known to be relatively lenient with the people who he plundered, and one time, he and his crew pirated a ship, and only stole the the other crews hats.
These stories and more exist in a legacy of pirates, and what can be almost certainly assured is that they never used most of the words I’ve added to the list above. Like language, their stories are mutable, and sometimes it’s just more fun to imagine what could have been. Pirate stories are half legend, half truth, and if you happen to find a pirate map, and it includes an X labeled with the words “Treasure be here” just know that, more than likely, it is not, because that’s not the way a pirate would speak anyway.
Is there a point to this?
Not really, except that pirate stories can be fun in a way pirates rarely were. But if you want to get into the spirit on your next pirate hunt, try some of these terms out, The members of JRIC definitely will.
Although Rumors of Treasure abound, thar be no treasure here.