On this the official “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” all I can say is, “No, thank you. I would rather not.”  The problem is that there are still real pirates plying their trade around the globe, abusing and and too often killing merchant seamen.  So, pretending to speak in some stilted form of 17th century nautical English, by way of Hollywood and Disney, while pretending to be a faux-pirate, seems in bad taste, at best.  The larger question is, why romanticize pirates in the first place?  In the real world, pirates, whether of the so-called “Golden Age of Piracy,” or of today, were and are nautical thieves and, more often than not, murderers as well.

There is a vast disconnect between the actual pirates and the perception of pirates in current culture as delivered to us from Hollywood, popular books and video gaming. Pirates are presented as either slightly comical figures, rascals, perhaps, but not really dangerous, or as heroic underdogs, fighting against oppression. All well suited to comic books or romantic fiction, but having little to do with history.

The indoctrination begins very early on. Search for “children’s books” and “pirates” on Amazon and you’ll get 4,454 results. The first books on the list include Pirate Boy by Eve Bunting, The Pirates Next Door by Jonny Duddle, The Six Pirates: A Rollicking & Rhyming Picture Book. (Fun Rhyming Children’s Books) by Lily Lexington, Do Pirates Take Baths? by Kathy Tucker, The Pirate Who Couldn’t Say Arrr! by M.S. CCC-SLP Angie Neal, and How to be a Pirate (Little Golden Book) by Sue Fliess.

If being instructed on how to be a pirate by a Golden Book is not enough, there is also Pirate Potty by Samantha Berger, to teach pirates aged 2-4 years old about potty training.

For adults the story-line doesn’t change much.  Pirates are rascally rogues perhaps, but they signify freedom and independence from authority. They go their own way and live as they choose.  And on and on ad nauseam.  Cut to Errol Flynn and Johnny Depp.  And let’s ignore the unpleasantness like theft, torture and murder.

Even during the so-called “Golden Age of Piracy,” whatever freedom and independence the pirates may have experienced was short-lived.  For that matter, so were the pirates. Few pirate captains had careers of more than a few years before being killed in battle or hung from a gibbet.

Even Bartholomew Roberts, considered to be one of the most successful pirates of the era, survived for less than three years before being trapped by a Royal Navy cruiser and having his throat torn open by grapeshot. Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was a pirate captain for only about two years before his severed head ended up tied beneath the bowsprit of a Royal Navy sloop.  Calico Jack Rackham also lasted about two years.  Black Sam Bellamy was dead within about a year. “Ned” Low, known as a sadistic torturer, had a run of almost three years.  The image of pirates as free spirited swashbucklers just doesn’t jibe with their history as fugitives who invariably were caught and killed, fairly swiftly.

The problem is that pirates have been infantilized.  Pirates have been repackaged as cute and cuddly. Their images bear as much relation to real pirates as teddy bears are to grizzlies.

Or maybe the larger problem is that we have been infantilized.  Rather than looking at history, we buy into movie marketing. We take the faux-pirate lore at face value. Too many folks go to “pirate festivals” and come away actually knowing less about nautical history than when they started.

So, no, I will not talk like a pirate. And by the way, why should you?