How to Talk Like a Pirate - Quotes, Vocabulary, Glossary, and Phrase Examples
Whether it’s for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, or just because you’re bored, talking like a pirate can be fun. Here is a complete list of pirate words, their meaning, and some phrase examples.
At the bottom of this page you’ll find a quick guide on how to build your own pirate insults.
Accord
This is a deal/contract between two pirates usually sealed with a handshake or a scurvy fist bump. Scientists in Wales claim that fist bumps transfer less bacteria than handshakes so are therefore healthier. They also look cooler and are more efficient. You can fist-bump three or four people in the time it takes to shake one person’s hand. Plus you won’t feel intimidated if they have a stronger grip or try and shake your arm off like you’re a can of paint.
“Do we have an accord?”
“Aye, but if there’s any funny business I’ll be shippin’ ya to the Locker meself.”
“With the cables and the extended warranty your total comes to $932.57.”
“We have an accord!”
“Uhhhhh, okay, so how do you want pay for that?”
“With me credit carrrrrrrrd.”
Ahoy
Said when you want someone’s attention or you want to flag down another ship because they’re trespassing in your territorial waters.
“Ahoy there, what flag is that?”
“Ahoy, your hair is on fire.”
“Ahoy there, I’ll take two McDoubles, and the price better not have gone up again or you’ll be seein’ the sharp edge of me cutlass.”
“Ahoy there, officer. No it’s fine you don’t have to arrest me. I’m not a pirate, I’m a privateer, and I’m commandeering this television in the name of the Queen.”
Arr
While technically a word, this is more of growl used to signify agreement. Grunts, growls, and gestures are the earliest forms of communications and also the most efficient.
“Arr, matey, that seems like a good plan.”
Waitress: “Would you like sour cream with your chicken wings?”
“Arr, that would be nice.”
Waitress: “It’s an extra 35 cents.”
“How about I shoot you with me pistol and just take it?”
Waitress: “How about I call the cops?”
“Arr I was just role-playing. 35 cents e’ll be fine.”
Nate Silver: “Are you voting liberal or conservative?”
“Arr.”
Nate Silver: “No you have to pick one.”
“I did, I said, Republican.”
Avast
Said when you want someone to literally stop in their tracks, or to cease whatever action they’re performing.
“Avast hauling!”
“Avast with the rowing, you morons, or we’re gonna hit those rocks and our boat insurance is goin’ through the roof.”
“Avast with the pirate costumes on Halloween, ye insensitive scallywags, haven’t ye ever heard of cultural appropriation? My great- grandmother didn’t walk the plank so you could go door-to-door begging fer candy!”
Aye
An acknowledgement in the affirmative meaning yes, okay, that’s fine, and whatever lol.
“Aye aye, captain, sou’ by southwest it is.”
“The doctor asked me where it hurt and I said ‘aye, all over’ and she prescribed me this vial of eye drops and that’s how I lost me teeth and hair to scurvy.”
Scientist: “I’ve designed a cure for cancer and I want to test it on humans but there’s a slight chance it may turn everybody into zombie-vampires and we’ll need a US Army virologist to save New York and maybe the rest of the world. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Aye that sounds like an acceptable plot to a movie.”
Scientist: “What do you mean ‘movie’?”
Belay
Another word that means “stop what you’re doing.” Lots of words for stop were needed because most pirates were uneducated and had problems with authority. “Belay” was more of a word the captain would use, whereas the bilge rats and gutter scrubbers would use “avast.”
First Mate: “We're under attack! Avast, ye swabs! Repel the invaders!
“Belay that order, Mr. Smite, those landlubbers are tougher than you think. Pull up the gangplank and let’s get out of here before we get our heads chopped off.”
“I’ll have another Budweiser. Actually, belay that, bring me a martini with three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it over ice and then add a thin slice of lemon peel.”
Bilge Rat
Like most rodent-based vocabulary, this can be used as an insult, but technically a bilge rat is an actual rat that lives on the lowest level of the ship, the bilge. The bilge is usually filled with ballast (stinky sea water) which improves the draft and stability of the vessel.
So when you call someone a bilge rat, you’re piling on to the rat insult by inferring they also smell horrible and they live in the worst part of town. The modern equivalent might be a meth-addicted homeless person living in a bathtub next to a sewage treatment plant.
Obviously this is not a nice comparison and homelessness is a serious issue which hopefully will be solved before aliens make first contact. Although it’s possible that our various social, political, and religious issues prevent them from communicating with us in the first place. To a highly-advanced galaxy-spanning Type III civilization Earth might look like a tire fire. And it’s a good idea to stay away from anything that’s been burning for 12,000 years.
“Load the cannons and be ready to fire in 60 seconds or you’ll be sleepin’ with the bilge rats!”
Blimey
This word is used, often with an exclamation mark, to express alarm, excitement, or surprise. It is short for “God blind me,” and is still used in the United Kingdom. While not a swear word, it’s not something you want to utter in front of the Queen.
“Blimey!” said One-Eyed Frank. “We almost ran aground on that shoal.”
“Blimey,” said the millennial. “How am I supposed to get a job in Paris if we leave the European Union?”
Hello, World!
Blow the man down
While “Blow the Man Down” is a popular sea shanty, the phrase itself has two meanings. One is slang for shooting someone with your pistol. The second is a description of how powerful the winds are. Pirate ships required a lot of crew running around on the deck. So if the wind was strong enough it would “blow the man down.” These days if the winds are too strong the sailors just stay in their cabins and get drunk.
“Careful there, matey, the winds are strong enough to blow the man down.”
“If Timmy doesn’t come up with that five large he owes me we’re gonna have to blow the man down.”
“Did Blackbeard win the boxing match?”
“Yeah he blew the man down in the first round. Knocked him out with a parrot uppercut.”
Boom about!
A boom is a long pole that runs along the bottom of the fore and aft rigged sail. Sometimes when it’s windy out, the boom will fly back and forth. This is very dangerous and the pole smacks you in the head then you could die. But if you’re a character in a family movie you’ll probably just be knocked overboard. If you see the boom moving you can warn people by yelling, “Boom about!”
Johnny saw the boom swaying in the wind and thought, “Boom about!” But he didn’t say anything because he didn’t particularly like anybody else on the crew.
Code of Conduct
This is a firm set of rules on a pirate ship which everybody is supposed to follow or they’ll have to walk the plank, but sometimes it turns out the regulations are more like guidelines and then it becomes perfectly acceptable to violate these directives especially if you’re more of a skeleton and less of a person since most rules only apply to the living. This is why you never see zombies getting arrested.
The code of conduct on the Black Pearl says that if any prisoner requests a parlay with the captain they aren’t to be harmed until negotiations are complete. Afterwards it’s perfectly acceptable to throw them overboard and if they need a bath they might even thank you for it.
Commandeer
When you “commandeer” something, like a ship, or a radio station, it means you’re taking control/possession of it without the authority of the previous owner. While this might sound like stealing, remember that it’s only a crime if you they catch you.
Being a successful pirate is all about commandeering as many objects as possible. The more treasure, jewels, and ships you steal the larger your high score will be when you die. If your score is high enough then Davy Jones might let you serve on his ship, The Flying Dutchman, or maybe write a foreword in your book.
Pirate: “Commandeer me another bottle o’ beer, lass.”
Girlfriend: “You still haven’t paid me back for the last one.”
Pirate: “What are ye, deaf or just illiterate?”
Girlfriend: “You’re using ‘commandeer’ wrong. You wouldn’t commandeer a bottle of beer, you would steal it. If you want to commandeer the entire restaurant, that’s a different story.”
Pirate: “Don’t tell me how to talk like a pirate, I am a pirate!”
Girlfriend: “Well then start acting like one and steal your own beer. Actually you know what, I’m done. This was a mistake. I’m going home. I got better things to on a Friday night than sit around Chili’s watching you get arrested.”
Come about
Said when you want to change the direction of the ship. Like if your old drinking buddy, Grogbeard, told you that Happy Island was a great place to buy cheap rum but when you went to dock your boat you discovered the island was populated by cannibals who like to roast pirates in the ashes of their pirate ships. You’d yell at the crew: “Come about.” And then to the cannibals: “You’ll never get out of the Bronze Age if you keep eating people. It’s better for your gross domestic product if you turn them into low-wage employees with limited health benefits!” Now the First Mate is confused and he says, “Come again?” and you say, “No, no, come about.”
As you sail away the crew chants, “The workforce is a not a food source! The workforce is not a food source!”
Clap him in irons
This means to throw someone in the brig (a ship’s jail), or to tie them up in chains so they can’t move. There were a lot of reasons you might get clapped in irons if you worked on a ship. From disrespecting an officer all the way to full-on mutiny, the rule was, and still is, if you’re going to do something naughty it’s best not to get caught.
Once you were clapped in irons your likelihood of escaping unharmed was extremely low. If you were a pirate caught by the Royal Navy, you would probably hang. If you were a pirate who slighted the captain’s parrot by feeding it an unsalted cracker when it was clearly suffering from hyponatremia, you’d probably get lashed with the cat o' nine tails which was a fancy name for a multi-tailed whip made of leather and sometimes back hair.
“Officer of the watch, take that man below and clap him in irons.”
“Listen up, ye gobsmackin’ monkey lickers, the next man who takes a 20 minute break to play with their phone on the poop deck will be getting’ a face full-o-shot.”
“Can’t you just clap them in irons?”
“Aye but I got this fancy new pistol for me birthday and I can’t help but be think’ how much fun it would be to blow a man—
“TOO MUCH INFORMATION!”
“Down! Blow a man down! Christ on a kraken, Dave. Get your noggin out of the ballast tanks before I grease your weasel and throw to the man-eaters.”
“Are you even listening to what you’re saying?”
Crack Jenny’s teacup
This is slang for spending the night in a brothel. A brothel was a building full of mostly uneducated women practicing psychology and gymnastics. A pirate would pay a gold coin for an hour of their time and would discuss all sorts of topics ranging from feelings to pillaging. If the scallywag paid extra he could escort the woman to the governor’s ball as his date and claim he met her at wedding. She’d pretend to be his girlfriend and the pirate could pretend he was in a stable relationship. The woman would experience something similar only she was getting paid so she would have a much better time.
The Office (deleted scene)
Dwight: “Hey, Oscar, I just sold 500 reams to Vance Refrigeration, what do you we say go and smash Jenny’s teacup?”
Oscar: “Actually the phrase you’re looking for is ‘crack Jenny’s teacup,’ and unless we’re cracking John’s teacup, I’m gonna have to take a rain check.”
Dwight: “The Scranton Brothel caters to both teams, Oscar, this is America. It’s 2009.”
Oscar: “Prostitution is illegal, Dwight. I don’t want to spend the night in jail.”
Dwight: “Why not? The ratio is better and you get free room and boarding. You’re an accountant. You should be all over this. If you had a half a brain you’d be getting arrested every night. So tell me, what’s it like only having a quarter of a brain?”
(Oscar’s face close up in that little room they do the interviews in): “Ugh, that man can be so infuriating sometimes.” *makes a strangling motion*
Toby sees this from the window. His eyes narrow.
Crimping
Also called shanghaiing which is a much cooler name. Shanghaiing was the process of tricking people into serving on your ship. Pirates would target alcoholic sailors and serve them grog until they blacked out. In the morning the sailor would wake up in the middle of the ocean and be like, “Uhh excuse me but can we turn around? I don’t want to work for an employer who uses kidnapping as a recruitment tool.”
But since the boat was already underway the only options the sailor would be given was accepting a work contract or walking the plank and being eaten by sharks.
The pirates that kidnapped sailors were called crimps. One of the reasons pirates did this was because skilled sailors were in short supply. Another reason was they were jerks.
Not all crimps used the grog method. Some would just stick their pistol in a sailor’s face and say, “Get on the boat, matey, or I’m gonna turn your forehead into a canoe.” Of course once the boat docked in a new port the kidnapped sailors would escape, forcing the pirate to search out new victims to drug and kidnap.
It would have been easier to find great long-term employees by offering competitive wages, profit splitting opportunities, as well as health and dental benefits, but the bosses were short-sighted psychopaths only concerned with next quarter’s income statement and their monthly bonus checks.
500 years later things are much better. Now the sailors have a ping pong room.
Davy Jones
While the origin of Davy Jones is somewhat contested, most scholars agree that sailors were referring to the corrupted soul of Jonah, the prophet, who was tossed into the sea because he bragged about how tight he was with God and said something along the lines of, “I’m so awesome, that if you were to throw me overboard then God would end the storm so I wouldn’t drown.” The crew said, “Okay let’s try that.”
While the storm did stop raging (eventually) Jonah had drowned because he wasn’t wearing his life preserver because he forgot it in his locker. Thus the idiom, “Davy Jones’ Locker” was born.
If a pirate or ship is said to have “gone to Davy Jones’ Locker” this means they’ve sunk to the bottom of the sea and are totally dead.
Davy Jones was popularized in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest where he was portrayed as a squid monster with fondness for gambling and crazy people. His ship was named The Flying Dutchman and Jones was responsible for ferrying dead sailors to the afterlife.
“Life is cruel. Why should the afterlife be any different?” – Davy Jones
Gallows
This is what you’re gonna hang from if you’re captured while committing acts of piracy. A gallows is a wooden frame that looks like a scaffold and is sturdy enough to support the dead weight of several large human males. Since the punishment for most piracy-related crimes, or really any serious crime back then was hanging, a gallows was usually large enough to hang several people at once. Pirates were hung in batches and there skeletons bodies were strung up in public squares and down at the docks along with a sign that said: Don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin’.
“Heave to, boys, and come about. If they catch us we’ll be hanging from the gallows b’fore dawn.”
“I swear to God if they don’t have Diet Coke then somebody is hanging from the gallows.”
“Shut up, Karen. Why don’t you just drink water if you’re so concerned with losing weight?”
“I don’t like water.”
“Diet Coke is like, 99% water.”
“Shut up, no it’s not.”
“Google it, wench.”
Hearty
A pirate would use this word to address his fellow shipmates when he was in a good mood. The plural of course is “hearties.” As in, “Drink up, me hearties, yoho!”
“Avast there, me hearties, and come about. Make sure to secure the boom because if it hits me in the head one more time I’m gonna lose my freakin’ mind.”
Judge: “The charges are theft, grand theft, impersonating law enforcement, kidnapping, and attempted murder. How do you plead?”
Pirate: “Yarr, what do I care? Me hearties will be along to spring me from jail any minute now.”
Judge: “I’ve warned you about talking like a pirate, Mr. Wozniak. One more time and I’ll find you in contempt of court.”
Pirate: “Shiver me timbers, not contempt of court!”
Judge: “Bailiff, please remove the defendant.”
Pirate: “You mean pirate.”
Judge: “You’re sentenced to 60 days in jail for contempt.”
Pirate: “Make it a hundred, fatso. I’ll be outta here soon as me ship comes in.”
Judge: “This is a landlocked county.”
Steve the Pirate considers this and decides maybe it might not be the worst idea to obtain legal counsel.
Pirate: “I’ll be takin’ that free lawyer ye offered earlier.”
Judge: “You waived your right to an attorney when you decided to represent yourself even though your own legal training was, and I quote, ‘12 episodes of Law and Order, two bottles of rum, and an autographed photo of Judge Dredd.’”
Heave to
You say this when you want to order the ship to slow down and/or come to a complete stop. This is a useful command if you’re staring through the spyglass and you spot an armada from the royal navy and Fred forgot to unfurl the skull and bones flag so when the lookout in the vanguard spots your vessel he’ll yell “Pirates!” and then you’ll have to run for your life which is difficult when you’re in the middle of the ocean.
“Heave to and come about, or we’ll all be hanging from the yardarm!”
Waitress: “Would you like fries, salad, or the baked potato?”
“Fries.”
“Okay.” *waitress turns to leave*
“Heave to a minute there, lass, I’m thinkin’ maybe the Greek salad is a better choice for me waistline.”
“Dressing on the side?”
“I’m a pirate not a kraken.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
Launch the boats
Sometimes you’ll find yourself in calm waters and there isn’t any wind blowing on your sails. You’ll stop to take a break from all that pirating nonsense and have a picnic. As you’re munching on your chicken legs and salted pork, a thick fog descends around your ship and you start hearing voices calling out to you from the murky depths. While you don’t believe in ghosts or sea monsters, you decide it might be prudent to get the hell out of there.
But how?
There’s no wind.
Here’s how. You yell “Launch the boats!” and all your pirate interns will cram into tiny boats sometimes referred to as cutters. They would attach the cutter to the main boat using rope or a metal chain, and then row like their lives depended on it. If they rowed hard enough they could spin the ship around and drag it until the sails caught the wind. Then you rocket outta there and wave your butt at the sinister fog which was actually just regular fog and the spooky voices were the result of dehydration, liver disease, and scurvy-related delusions.
Of course the boats can be used for other things like pillaging, plundering, and boarding parties. Once you get your pirates into the tiny boats they have to obey your orders. You could get them to row round in circles singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” if you wanted. (Not recommended.)
Man overboard
Shout this when you see a fellow sailor floundering about in the ocean. It’s not important how he ended up there, it’s important that you sound the alarm so he gets rescued, unless of course you owe him money because you’ve had a back string of luck playing poker then you’ll have to evaluate whether or not it’s worth it save the guy’s life and if you’ll be able to sleep at night. You might spend the next 20 years wondering if not saving someone is the same as killing them. But you’re a pirate so who gives a barnacle? It’s not like you pushed him overboard.
…Right?
“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were pirate words, then she was a sword and I was the man overboard.” – John Greenish
Mutiny
Sometimes the captain will make a series of bad decisions and the crew will decide he’s no longer fit for command but unfortunately for those that prefer non-violent solutions a pirate ship isn’t a democracy it’s a dictatorship and the only way to get rid of a tyrant whose appointed himself ruler for life is to club him in his sleep and toss him to the fishies.
In order for a mutiny to be successful you’ll need the support of the majority of the crew, or at least the ones that know how to fight. The first thing you do is take out the captain. Don’t lock him in his room because whenever somebody does this in a movie the captain always escapes and causes havoc in the second act.
If you let the leader live, then your coup, mutiny, or attempt to form a union is going to fail. You’re a pirate. If tossing people into shark-infested waters makes your belly squirm then that’s probably a good thing because it means you’re not a psychopath and are destined to be a valuable member of society.
“If the captain continues with his narcissistic loot disbursement policy then there’s gonna be a mutiny.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means his dumb cousin gets paid too much and all he does is drop the anchor.”
“I’d like to drop the anchor on the captain’s head.”
“That’s a great idea.”
“It is?”
“No.”
“Well why not?”
“Because, Devin, you can’t lift the anchor. You’d have to throw the captain into the drink and then drop the anchor on his head, and if he’s already drowning then what’s the purpose of dropping the anchor on his head?”
“Well you don’t have to be so mean about it.”
“And clubbin’ the captain and throwin’ him overboard? What do you call that?”
“A somewhat peaceful transition of power.”
“You’re a right special one you are.”
Privateer
You know how some companies have a license that allows them to produce and sell medical marijuana without being arrested? If this was 600 years ago and instead of growing pot they were raiding ships and colonies controlled by enemy states then they’d be called privateers.
If England were at war with France or Spain, as was often the case, the Queen would give you special authorization to attack and plunder and these papers were called letters of marque. In exchange for this ‘license to pillage’ you would give her majesty a large percentage of your booty when (if) you returned home.
It was tough to prove exactly where you stole the treasure from, and of course it didn’t matter to the people being robbed and murdered whether you called yourself a pirate or a privateer, but it did matter in the eyes of the law. If you were caught with a boatload of loot and stolen goods and you didn’t have the papers to prove you were a privateer, then you’d be heading to the gallows and the government would confiscate your hard-earned wealth.
Raid/Pillage/Loot/Plunder/Pilfer/Sack
These are the various verbs you can use to describe your unsanctioned acquisition of valuable items you don’t have a legal right to commandeer. Also known as theft.
Back in the swashbucklin’ days, the magistrate didn’t usually take into account how much stuff you stole before handing out punishment. So if you ever travel back in time and take up piracy don’t worry about how much you’re stealing, just make sure you aren’t caught.
These days if you steal over certain amounts then punishment escalates accordingly. Steal too much and you’ll get the feds after ya. Steal a lot and they’ll send in the tanks and the helicopters.
This of course only applies to normal theft. You could, for example, get a bunch of leaky pirate ships rated triple YAAARR and then package them with all that stinky flotsam you dragged out of the harbor and then sell the deed to all that garbage to a retirement fund for scallywags and tell the fund managers it’s a contract for tiny chunks of a brand new fleet because technically you aren’t lying. Later when the shipping industry crashes and millions of buccaneers lose their boats, swords, and eye patches, you can laugh yourself all the way to Treasure Island and the most you’ll probably get is a slap on the wrist.
The local magistrate will ask you to pretty please don’t do that, and you’ll say, “Okay, matey, I swear on me dead parrot I’ll never be doin’ that again,” but a promise isn’t legally binding so really why wouldn’t you take another stab at it?
“It’s plunderin’ time!”
“I don’t get it.”
“I’m covered in rocks and I’ve got pirate hat!”
“Still don’t get it.”
“I’m the Pirate Thing! From the Fantastic Four!”
“Stop ending all your sentences with exclamation marks.”
“I’ll be walkin’ the stone plank before that’ll happen!”
Salty dog
You might be familiar with the word salty as a description for someone who is upset or acting bitter and aggressive.
In the pirate world someone who is salty, a salty dog, or worth his salt, is an experienced sailor who won’t crash the ship into a rock of harpies if he hears them whistling a happy tune. An old salt would know to cram his ears full of wax or stuffing so he couldn’t hear the siren’s deadly call.
Most pirate crews would only have a couple salty dogs in the crew as the lifespan for a pirate was not great. Many died before they were 30 from things like typhus, dysentery, smallpox, measles, fever, scurvy, food poisoning, venereal disease, yellow fever, malaria, cannon balls, and getting stabbed over games of dice.
These days if you suspect someone of cheating it’s more polite to just flip the table and strut around the room clucking like a chicken.
“Welcome aboard The Banshee, Mr. Bloom, you come highly recommended. The gunners tell me you’re as salty as barrel of dehydrated seawater.”
Savvy
Somehow the use of this amazing word has gone the way of the dodo bird and the Caribbean monk seal. Which is too bad, because savvy is a more efficient way of asking “Do you understand?” or as reply to mean “Yes I understand.”
This is why pirates were so effective at looting, pillaging, plundering, pilfering, thieving, robbing, invading, commandeering, ravaging, raiding, and ransacking. They used fewer resources to accomplish their goals. So it’s not surprising that the government, an organization whose wastefulness of time and money is hard-coded into the constitution, had such a hard time catching pirates.
If you want to do your part to make the world a better place, then on election day you need to rally your friends, call up the radio stations, get on social media, construct banners, posters, flags, and t-shirts with a unified message that everyone, young or old can do their part to drag our civilization kicking and screaming into the future by using the word savvy as much as possible.
Sheldon: “Alright, lads, when they come about we’re gonna drop anchor and lay into them with the long nines, savvy?”
Stuart: “Not really, but your enthusiasm for this project has brightened an otherwise dreary afternoon.”
Leonard: “Shut up, Stuart, and start loading the cannons.”
Scallywag
A scallywag is troublemaker you keep around because they’re entertaining. They tend to be thieves, rogues, and rascals, but they’re also quite charming and possibly so good-looking even the elderly will flirt with them.
This is a term of endearment and not an insult. You wouldn’t call someone a scallywag and then run your cutlass through them. You’d call them a scallywag when making excuses to local magistrate why your friend shouldn’t be thrown in jail for public drunkenness and making out with a one-eyed monkey.
“Somebody find out who spilled rum all over the gunpowder. And it better not be that scallywag Bill or he’ll be walkin’ the plank with two bloody stumps.”
Strumpet
This is a slang term for a prostitute. A prostitute is like a girlfriend but after you’re done watching Netflix she goes home and never calls you again. Since most pirates were alcoholic thieves with bad diets and no job security they had a tough time landing a girlfriend let alone a wife. So when they got into town they would employ the services of a strumpet and she would entertain the pirate in a private room.
Strumpets were usually quite friendly and obviously didn’t care much about looks because a lot of pirates were horribly disfigured from the scurvy and all that getting stabbed and shot at.
Even though these women were so nice to them, sometimes the pirate would try and leave without paying the strumpet for her services. This would result in an argument that would be settled by the strumpet’s manager who employed tactics like saying “Please pay your bill,” and if that didn’t work they used violence. Violence is an effective method of getting people to settle their invoices and is still used today.
When Ugly Tom got back into port the first thing he did was visit Madame Ningbo’s House of Strumpets. Their slogan was: “Come for the girls, stay for the wontons.”
A wonton is a piece of low-grade meat wrapped in edible paper and boiled in leftover soup. You can dip them in soy sauce, hot sauce, or the tears of a strumpet.
(They cry because they’re sad you’re leaving. It’s not because they always wanted to an actress.)
Swag/Booty/Loot/Plunder
Swag, and other such nouns, is slang for treasure, money, or goods that have been stolen by a thief, burglar, or pirate.
Since the pirate industry is based on taking things that don’t belong to you, most of a pirate’s wealth would be classified as swag, booty, loot, or plunder.
When a pirate turns 16 he meets with an accountant and chooses how he will refer to his treasure when he files his income tax. Deciding what name to use to call his stolen goods is a big step in a pirate’s life. Most will pick a word and stick with it their entire lives. It’s a personal choice that reflects your values and upbringing.
People who use the word “swag” tend to be loud and obnoxious. This still applies today.
“Shiver me timbers and squawk me parrot, it’s plunderin’ time.”
“No you have to use the word ‘plunder’ in a sentence so it’s consistent with the rest of the book.”
“The pirates plundered the countryside.”
“You’re still using it as a verb. We’re looking for the noun.”
“I’m gonna plunder your face if you don’t stop telling me what to do.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Not everything has to!”
Take in sail
You’ve heard of the word “unfurl” right? It means to roll something out from a folded state. Like a sail. Well that’s not what we’re doing here. When you tell your stupid little pirate buddies to “take in sail” it means the opposite of unfurl. It means to furl the sail. Furl might sounds like a Pokémon or a character on Sesame Street but it means to roll something up.
So when you furl the sail you’re making impossible for the wind to catch it. If the wind doesn’t catch the sail then you’re not going anywhere.
Really it would be just easier to yell “Stop the goddamn boat!” because there are other things you need to do aside from rolling up the sail, but many pirates are religious and they don’t like it when you take the Lord’s name in vain.
There also might be a situation where you run into an enemy ship full of archers with flaming arrows and you don’t want your sail to get burned because your mother quilted it for you on as birthday present. Then you’d definitely want to yell “Take in sail,” so the archers have a smaller target. Hopefully the arrows fall harmless into the sea and not into the barrels of gunpowder you’re storing on the deck.
Ironically, after your entire ship explodes in a giant ball fire, the insurance company will be out of a lot more than the cost of repairing the sail. Your wife will be rich though (insurance money) and she’ll sail off into the sunset with your cousin who purposefully left the gunpowder on the deck because this was all an elaborate plan to steal your wealth and your wife. (Sorry.)
Good news though: Because these terrible things happened to you, Davy Jones has given you the opportunity to return to the world of the living as a pirate ghost to seek revenge. All he wants in return is for you to go door-to-door two nights a week telling people about the Church of the Kraken.
Yo-ho
Said when you want attention. You could also throw another “ho” on there and make it “yo-ho-ho,” if you’re feeling in a festive mood.
It’s also part of a fiction sea shanty called “Dead Man’s Chest” in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island.
Here is a verse:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—
...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
If you’re going to say “Yo-ho” to get someone’s attention, then make sure you say both words quickly. Otherwise someone might think you’re being rude and obnoxious toward your lady friend. In Canada this an offence that will get you sanctioned by the members of your community and they will “forget” your coffee order when they bring back Tim Horton’s for everyone. Not that Tim Horton’s coffee is any good anymore. But Canadians are too polite to run it out of business. Management seems to be doing just fine on that front by all their onesies, savvy?
Building Your Own Insults
As a pirate captain you’ll find yourself frequently shouting orders to your crew of buccaneers and scallywags. You want to be clear and short with your directions, like “Launch the boats,” or “Heave to and take in sail,” but at the same time you need to establish your dominance over these bilge rats so they don’t mutiny and murder you in your sleep.
Don’t worry, you won’t make the crew feel bad as long as your insults are exaggerated and obviously untrue. Calling Cutthroat Steve a “moldy cockroach” is much better than saying his watercolors look like they were painted by a brain-damaged monkey with no-arms. (Most people are sensitive about their hobbies and cutthroats are no exception.)
So in order to craft a great pirate insult you need to two exaggerations, an adjective, and a noun. You’ll combine the two to create something like “moldy cockroach,” which is an appropriate insult since you might find both mold and cockroaches on a pirate ship.
Adjectives
The trick with adjectives is you want a word that’s both colorful and descriptive. We don’t want boring words like “ugly” because not only is it bland and boring, it’s too basic for a pirate captain. You’re in charge of the boat. All of the pirates are looking up to you. You need to impress them with vocabulary. Thankfully there’s a book for that and it’s called a thesaurus. Thankfully there’s a website for that and it’s called Google. You input a search string like “ugly + synonym” and you’ll be presented with a great list of words similar to “ugly.” (A synonym is word that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, for example jump is a synonym of hop.)
Let’s take a look. Here are some synonyms for ugly:
unattractive, unappealing, unpleasant, hideous, unlovely, unprepossessing, unsightly, horrible, frightful, awful, ghastly, vile, revolting, repellent, repulsive, repugnant, grotesque, disgusting, monstrous, reptilian, misshapen, deformed, disfigured, homely, plain, not much to look at, butt ugly, fugly
Personally I like unsightly and reptilian because I can see Captain Barbossa saying something like that. He’d probably say “reptilian” in a classic insult, and “unsightly” in a sentence like, “Why don’t you come below, Miss Turner, you’re lookin’ a mite unsightly.”
Some other words with great synonyms are smelly, stupid, fat, and incompetent. That’s enough to get you started.
Nouns
Just like adjectives you want to be using colorful and descriptive nouns. The noun is the tail-end of the insult, and just like a joke, it’s more effective if your audience hasn’t heard it before. The more ridiculous your noun, the funnier it’ll be.
You could call someone a “smelly cockroach,” but it won’t have the same impact as “bulbous dung beetle” or “vomiting show ponies.”
Let’s ruin the first insult by dissecting it.
Bulbous is a great word because nobody wants to be bulbous. It implies you’re fat or otherwise misshapen and thus unwanted as a lover by the opposite sex. It also means you’re slow. Slow things get caught and eaten by fast things. You wouldn’t put “bulbous” in your list of qualifications if you were hiring people. Nobody wants to sit next to a bulbous individual at the movie theater or on a plane. Bulbous people are unwanted in a society of cutthroat hunters.
A dung beetle is an insect that spends its time searching for, collecting, and eating poop. Nobody wants to be called a poop-eater, but you wouldn’t want to use “poop-eater” as insult because it’s juvenile and not realistic enough to be funny. A dung beetle is a realistic creature that conjures a vivid image. “Eating shit” is also a synonym for not standing up for yourself. Someone who “eats shit” for a living works long hours for low pay because they aren’t qualified, confident, or adventurous enough to find a better job.
So when you combine bulbous and dung beetle, what you get is a fat lazy coward with a boring stupid job.
Unfortunately, now that we’ve examined the insult down to its roots, it just sounds weird. So I won’t ruin vomiting show ponies. You can do that yourself. Break it down like we just did with bulbous dung beetle and you’ll see why it works.
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