Just a Simple Question

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Getting away from a Holiday theme this morning, I was sitting here smoking my pipe thinking about something one of my sons once said about me.  Maybe in a previous life I was once a pipe smoking sea captain on a sailing vessel.  I think about that once in a great while whenever I am lighting my pipe.  We have so many romantic images of life at sea during the 18th and 19th centuries.  I have many nautical themed images from that time period in the world's history.

Then I got to thinking that maybe I might have been a captain on a pirate ship from that time period, but rather doubt that as a possibility, although the romance of the sea runs deep in my thinking, even though I haven't spent a lot of time on the water.  But according to my son that possibility exists. Which is why I smoke a pipe.  I have to admit that I like Hollywood's imagery of the life of sea captains.

Then I decided to ask Google about how pirates talked back then.  Much of our imagery about sea pirates was written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1850 with Treaure Island.  He romanticized the pirate life in his book.  But there are no written records that were kept by pirates, so there is not too much we know about pirates.  For some reason, only beknownst to my mind, I wondered how we get our imagery of the words we say that sounds like of that of the way pirates talked.

It all began in 1995 by two friends from Albany, Oregon, Jon Bauers and Mark Summers, who decided there should be a holiday named for pirates.  They chose September 19 as that day because one of them, and I'm not sure which one, had an ex-wife whose birthday was on that day.  But much of our imagery and language for pirates come from where else but 1950's Hollywood.

All that pirate language we have today is nothing but a Hollywood invention, because pirates were mostly illiterate and wrote nothing down.  So, we just don't know.  Most pirates on a ship would have been from various places the world over.  Their common language would have been nautical.  So, we just don't know.

I know September 19 is a long way away from today's date, but today I was curious.  I have yet to unpack my pipes and put my cabinet where it should belong, but this morning I was curious about something that has nothing to do with Christmas, unless Hollywood makes a movie about Santa being held hostage by pirates.  Not a bad plot, if I say so myself.  I am smoking my Savinelli Canadian Champagne pipe with some Christmas Spice tobacco, and lighting my pipe this morning began this journey of my mind.  Nothing Christmas-y about it.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave

 

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