Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Ross Clark Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: International Talk Like A Pirate Day (19 September) Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:01:46 +1200 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 25 Message-ID: Reply-To: r.clark@auckland.ac.nz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2024 14:01:51 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="43dd6eac10ad3122bb28a6d8bfcd68b9"; logging-data="601926"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+0PfacfPp5gI4ozGwxzje/ztmFgR/Ugyw=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.9.1 Cancel-Lock: sha1:YFlNoumqjuP/CSpIgfbmk305yps= Content-Language: en-GB X-Mozilla-News-Host: news://news.eternal-september.org:119 Bytes: 2102 "a joke" "all good fun" "an extra way of raising money for good causes" (really?) all seems now to be something that passed by in a puff of electrons....how many years ago? At least Crystal does note that the definitive understanding of how pirates talked comes from Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney-produced version of _Treasure Island_ (my first Favourite Movie -- saw it three times). So: RLS for the syntax and lexis, Newton for the "arrr!". Newton himself (1905-1956): Born in Shaftesbury, Dorset; spent some formative years (7-13) in Cornwall, then schooled in Exeter, Devon. So he did have some genuine West Country speech to draw on (plausibly) when portraying Silver. He was in a lot of films, including the 1940 _Gaslight_ (!). Carried on as Silver in an eponymous 1954 film and a one-season TV series. "Known for his hard-living life, he was cited as a role model by the actor Oliver Reed and the Who's drummer Keith Moon." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Newton