Oh, the indignity!
This is the furred, four-legged cat son of of our daughter. They have named him "Johnny Blaze," although, of course, his actual name is known only to him.
This would be a good time to observe that conventional wisdom has pirates typically saying "Arghhhh", but when you think about it, who really knows how pirates actually talked? Surely there are no sound bites from the 1700s.
I propose that early on in the "talkie" era, when motion pictures were first accompanied with sound, that a film was made in which a pirate first said "Arghhhh," and that became the model for pirate speech thereafter to this very day.
You're welcome to the PhD candidate to whom I just gave his dissertation thesis.
I haven't got any citations for this but... the stereotypical 'pirate talk' is actually an exaggerated version of a British 'west country' accent. The 'aaaargh' is probably a caricature of 'arr' - variations of 'arr', 'oh arr' and 'oo arr' are dialect for 'yes' or agreement all over that part of the UK, and so distinctive that they're ideal for caricature.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually pretty plausible, because the West Country was the location of most of the key sea ports in the 17th-19th centuries - particularly the military naval ports, so many sailors would probably have talked like that.
MrHare, Liked your comment, and thanks. Guess I'll have to schedule a vacation to your neck of the woods to check this out!
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