** A Note for Beginners

Saturday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and most of you know what to do.

But what about beginners? What about those who?ve never babbled like buccaneers, cursed like corsairs, or fumed like freebooters? How do you do this thing called talk?

Here are a couple of handy hints, courtesy of The Pirate Guys.

* Me hearties ? This is your basic starter kit for palaver. Tack this phrase on the end of every sentence and your on your way to talking like a . ?I?ll have a pepperoni pizza, me hearties.? ?Fill it with regular, me hearties.? ?Turn your head and cough, me hearties!? You get the idea.

* Remember the Five A?s. These five words that are the glue that hold talk together. They are:

-- Ahoy ? Hello
-- Avast! ? Stand and give attention, or more simply, listen up!
-- Aye ? I agree most heartily with everything you just said or did.
-- Aye Aye ? Yes boss, I?ll get right on that.

And of course ?

-- Aarrr! (Not aarrgh. That?s the sound you make when you sit on a belaying pin.) Aarrr is extremely flexible, the blunderbuss of your filibuster vocabulary. Load it up under any circumstances and let fly. Basically ?Aaarrr? means whatever you want it to mean. It can mean, among other things, ?Pour me a tankard of ale,? ?I am well satisfied with this cheeseburger,? ?Excuse me, old chap, but I?d rather you not look at my girlfriend that way,? or ?Hey everybody! Look at me! I'm talking like a !?

Basically, ?Aarrr? means, ?I?m here and alive!?

So there you have it. Now sit down and watch a couple of Robert Newton movies for your advance work, or read our books ? ?Pirattitude! So You Want to Be a Pirate, here?s How? and ?The Pirate Life: Unleashing your Inner Buccaneer? available at http://talklikeapirate.com/book.html ? and you?ll be all set for Saturday. And the rest of your life.