International Talk Like a Pirate Day

OV Digital Desk
3 Min Read
International Talk Like a Pirate Day

International Talk Like a Pirate Day is a parodic holiday created in 1995 by John Baur and Mark Summers, of Albany, Oregon, U.S., who proclaimed 19 September each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate. An observer of this holiday would greet friends not with “Hello, everyone!” but with “Ahoy, maties!” or “Ahoy, me hearties!” The holiday, and its observance, springs from a romanticized view of the Golden Age of Piracy.

Today, Talk Like a Pirate Day is fast becoming one of the most popular celebrations since Halloween and includes wearing pirate costumes, telling pirate jokes, and hosting pirate parties

HISTORY

John Baur (“Ol’ Chumbucket”) and Mark Summers (“Cap’n Slappy”) created this holiday on June 6, 1995. Out of respect for World War II’s D-Day, Baur and Summers chose to move the date of the holiday to September 19. Celebrated for the first time in 1995. They celebrated it quietly for a few years, sharing the joke with a small group of friends. One day in 2002, they wrote to humor columnist Dave Barry asking him to be the spokesperson for National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Amused by the idea, Barry agreed. He wrote a column about the holiday, giving it national prominence and spawning a wave of Talk Like a Pirate Day events and celebrations across the country.

International Talk Like Pirate Day was a low-key event until 2002 when it received media attention via syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry.V Today, it is celebrated around the world to raise funds for charity organizations, such as Childhood Cancer Support and Marie Curie Cancer Care.

IN 2002

At first an inside joke between two friends, the holiday gained exposure when Baur and Summers sent a letter about their invented holiday to the American syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry in 2002. Barry liked the idea and promoted the day, and later appeared in a cameo in their “Drunken Sailor” Sing Along A-Go-Go video. Growing media coverage of the holiday after Barry’s column has ensured that this event is now celebrated internationally, and Baur and Summers now sell books and T-shirts related to the theme on their website.

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