Playing Pirates

Litlove recently wrote an interesting post regarding the idea of "play" in our lives. I've been thinking about this for the last week or so, considering how 'play' and reading intersect, particularly when one is reading a book that is a so-called easy read. But, I'll have to postpone that post about the concept of play in the interest of the real thing. I feel I must inform those of you who may not be in the know that tomorrow is an international holiday of sorts, dedicated to this very idea. It exists for one reason: to have fun.

Ayyyy. It's the annual Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Here are some links for you land-lubbers:

First, if you are unaware of Talk Like A Pirate Day (hereafter refered to as TLAPD), read about it here.

You can catch up on your pirate lingo on the site above. Or, check out A Word A Day, where Ol' Chumbucket (aka John Baur, TLAPD co-creator along with Mark Summers) is guest wordsmith this week. Today's word: Buccaneer. More piraty words to follow.

It doesn't take anything to play along other than a sense of humor, but won't it be much more fun if you had a pirate name? Your blogging pseudonym could work, but come on! You already have one 'goes by' name. Why not another? A legal system acquaintance introduced me to the goes-by term. So much more fun than an alias, isn't it? A pirate must have a pirated goes-by name!

I played around with potential pirate names. I even used the name generator on TLAPD website. Some choices:

Captain Dread (based on my blogger name)

Or these based on various combinations of first/middle/last names:

Neck-snapper Nancy
The Lone Drinker
Count Plunder
Captain Mary Bonney

But my favorite one is this one, based on what I call my pizza name*.

Gorgeous Jen Smythe

So I guess that makes this my pizza pirate name!

(*A pizza name being a name that is easily understood and/or spelled when placing orders/making reservations. Isn't used solely for pizza delivery; comes in handy in swanky places too. Those of you who are Smiths or Joneses, might not understand. I had used Simpson as my pizza name for years but it became unusable during the OJ trial years. So I changed it. Years later, when I first met my spouse, I told him that his surname was my pizza name. Some people are very confused when I tell them that X--- is not my married name, but my pizza name and there was no need to change it when I married. Maybe I'll change my pizza name to Smythe....)

Your pirate ship needs a name too. My ship's name? The Shameful Strumpet. You can find your ship's name on the same pirate site.

Pirates used to frighten me. The first poem I ever memorized, at the wise age of 5, was all about a pirate: Ogden Nash's "The Tale of Custard the Dragon". I wanted to be Belinda, but was so much like Custard. I also wanted that pirate's "cutlass bright". Didn't have a clue what it was, but I knew it had to be something wonderful and scary! You can read Nash's poem here.

Though I think those guys at TLAP are cool and all, I think they may have missed the pirate boat when it comes to books. Secretly I think every pirate, once he finds his buried treasure would spend all of those pieces-of-eight on books and retire to a nice Caribbean island to read them all. I think maybe I'll go read Treasure Island. I ended up with two copies last December due to a mis-shipment and the online store would not take one copy back. So, not quite pirate booty, (does a pirate offer to return goods not purchased?), but close enough for this 364-day-a-year land-lubber. Even though they claim pirates don't read, those pirate guys provide a link to an online version of Treasure Island. What's your favorite pirate book?

Lastly, here is a link to San Francisco's only independent Pirate Store, which is online too. Sponsored by 826 Valencia. They be good mates helping sprogs. Go. Support them. Support literacy.

Ahoy, matey!


You Are A Pirate!


What Type Of Swashbuckler Are You?
brought to you by Maddog Varuka & Dawg Brown