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Yo Ho Ho! It's International Talk Like A Pirate Day

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

How do you think a pirate would ask you to grab a drink?

MARK SUMMERS: Yo-ho. I be Captain Slappy, and I'm here to slice the main brace with ye.

INSKEEP: Splice the main brace is a nautical phrase, and it can also be a euphemism for downing a bottle of rum.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

That very important fact was brought to you by one of the founders of - wait for it - International Talk Like A Pirate Day, Mark Summers, also known as Captain Slappy. People around the world mark Talk Like A Pirate Day every year on September 19.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YO, HO, HO! (AND A BOTTLE OF RUM)")

CRAIG TOUNGATE: (Singing) Fifteen men on a dead man's chest.

UNIDENTIFIED CHORUS: (Singing) Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.

GREENE: This all started when Summers and his co-founder John Bauer wanted to celebrate life as pirates would. Now there are pirate-themed festivals and meetings and trips to local watering holes to hoist a couple with your mateys.

INSKEEP: As you can imagine, NPR News has given regular coverage to this global event for years.

GREENE: Thank goodness.

INSKEEP: In 2002, Bauer told our colleagues on All Things Considered - they consider all things, you see. He told our colleagues on All Things Considered that he does not endorse piracy.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

JOHN BAUER: The reality is pirates were not nice people, and they still aren't. But movie pirates and cartoon pirates are fun to talk like.

INSKEEP: Mark Summers says that no matter what you say or how you celebrate today, it only matters that you do it with a pirate attitude, or pirattitude (ph), as he calls it.

SUMMERS: It's a swagger. It's an internal confidence.

BAUER: We've got to all have pirattitude, so heave-ho, landlubbers, and get to sounding like a pirate before we make you walk the plank.

INSKEEP: Arr.

(SOUNDBITE OF KLAUS BADELT'S "HE'S A PIRATE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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