Avast There, Ye Scurvy Dog

Once again, it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I hope you got to have fun with it (if you haven't yet, just say YARR or something of the sort). I got to do that a little bit, because the high school where I was teaching today was playing a school in football tonight whose mascot is the Pirates (and it's that school's homecoming tonight; does anyone think that was by accident?). and my school's theme this week was "Take the ARGH out of the Pirates," which involved the wearing of eye patches, Long John Silver hats and the like. It dovetailed nicely with talking like a pirate, so greetings were exchanged that way at the end of lessons. (I'm sure they had fun tonight in mARRching band.)

Other than that, though, no pirate-talking activities took place, as I didn't stop at StARRbucks or Super TARRget during the day. (I wish I'd thought of it at lunch, though, since I had bARRbecue.)

I found out about this "holiday" quite a few years ago, when Dave Barry picked up on it and made it known around the world through his blog. It may not seem like a real holiday, but it's no worse than National Hug Your Cat Day or anything like that. And it never grows old to me. James Lileks agrees, noting that "Some people find this day tiresome. I find it delightful."