Grendle

Pure brillyance. The cat nay got yer tongue, me bully. Yer right up, ship shape and bristol fashion, by gum. A tug o' the forelock to ye, sar, and now I'd better get on an even keel before I keel over and ye be forced to keelhaul me. Or just keel me daid.

Ah, a dee-termined lass, ye be then? Eye-ron Fayeth. Wand rouse nom de mer ye gots there! My complements to ye, as well!

Non! C'est vraisment? I were making a funny, which has fallen flat, ever dently. Oh, pair/pare an' a comely lass. Peurile, I know, but there you go, bilingual punnery be dangerous waters fer a inter leckshally lightly gunned lugger like meself. Pardonnez mois, ma'am :: knuckle to forehead ::

Aye, they be different. Fencin' is the art and science o' handlin' yer sword, and a cutlass is fer strippin' the blubber from whales, or any other large, undefended target that ye be hopin' to flence. If'n ye learns ta fence proper, ye can fence wi' any weapon, the parries translate (wi' a bit o' practice to learn the foibles o' the particular blade). On t'other hook, if'n ye learn by whackin' wi' a cutlass, ye'll have fun, sher, but may find yer technique ain't gonna hold in a pinch. IMHO, anyway.

Fie low Soff Ecal? What's that be, some new sort o' Greek diet pasty?

Arr, one might be "Swashbuckler" -- with Genevieve Bujold, James Earl Jones, Robert Shaw. Not much o' a movie, but a real purty ship, it be. Made in ought-76, when I was a yonker. But ye canna go wrong with Erol Flynn, or Tyrone Power, neither. I believe Burt Lancaster did one, a singin' pyrate or sompin', that I would give a miss, but then, whatever weights your anchor. POTC, o'course, Cutthroat Island has that bonny big lass getting punched in the face repeatedly, and fer toons, try Titan AE (a thinly disguised pirate tale). And, sigh, the muppet thing, too.

I be new (well, now, t'be honest, I be "recycled") and live in Savanner. I tink I'll come on up to the coast and find me some trouble ashore, I will. Arrharhahrrr. Scuze the hairball.

To the original question. ... How's about an Arkansas Toothpick fer a dagger? Large, double-edged, pointy blade, with basic handle and a bit o' brass ... makes a fine main gauche, if a tifle on the large side. They're (rr rrr) available from many sources. I got mine for $15 and it's got a tang as thick about as a pencil (not combat worthy) and I keep it sharp enow to shave with, but if'n I'm gonna be whackin' and slashin', the lefty blade stays in the sheath, anyhow.

Ye needs "a pair"? Pearl, looks like ye already have one, er, two.

Nah, I mis-agree. Full-cocked is the only way to go off, I say, and the proverbs back me up, they does. Lass or laddie, but one or t'other, please ye.

Oh, but try swimmin' ashore, or clamberin' up the side o' yer prey while carrying a nine-pounder!

Survived? As in, "still be alive"? Definitely not, mate. I canna tink o' a single pyrate from the 16th, 17th or 18th C. what is still alive today, Hawkins excepted o'course. But then, I prolly coulda done alright fer a while, I guess. The repetitive and occasionally vile food woulda been no worries (I ate me own "cookin'" for several years before I found a woman foolish enow to wed me) and I fights well, being large and well-found and able to think more than one move ahead. I kin sail, and shoot, hand and reef and steer. I can sew and smith and tan and coop and I be a fair carpenter. If I didn't catch a splinter or a ball, receive me death from a low blow or a back stab, get bitten by some nasty land bug carrying the plaque or the mal-air, or catch cholera or dysentery from the leaky casks in the bilge, break me fool from a fall, get ruptured or crushed on deck, buy a "short drop and a sudden stop" from bein' insolent, or just fricken flat die, I prolly woulda been a pretty successful pyrate, as handin' me foes what they deserves is a pure joy, and takin' what's left behind when they've gone to join the choir invisible is no heartache, neither. But survive? Naw, I'd be corruption and ooze with the rest o' the breed, fer sure, fer sure.

Aye, I never tought o' it dat way, Dru. Tanks fer tha notion. I dunna feel so becalmed now, I don't. I tink it was tha mascara that was hauntin' me ... I never learnt how, ye know, and I be too old ta learn, anyway.

What yer lookin' fer is called "sabre" fencin', as opposed to foil or epee (though if you are new to the sport, they will no doubt introduce you to foil initially). In sabre, the torso and arms and head are legal targets, and the attacks are all slashes, whereas in foil and epee, slashes are verbotten and the point is all. This is to simulate encounters between mounted riders, but is also what you see Erol Flynn and Tyrone Power doing in the pyrate movies. Most college athletic departments offer fencing. Many recreation departments do, also. I heartily recommend this sport as a great exercise and a fine way to learn to handle a sword like a pro. But by all means, do the SCA thing, too or instead, if you care to. There are some well-trained, skillful fencers in that organization, although their training tends to run more to stage fighting (binds, throws, leaps, rolls, etc.) than to the real deal.

It said I be Sparrow, too. Praps it was the "as much as I can" answer? I don't feel like a reeling psychopath in eyeliner.

I be "tra dish onal" also? I smells a rat, and not one a me own bilge babies, neither. Blast me, I be riled. Wastin' me time like that. Aye, who's in line fer killin'? Arrgh. Well, maybe they got it right, after all.

I be thinkin' he's dead, dead, dead as a mackerel, and twice as smelly. Weren't no tellin' that ole Bootstrap was afflicted. But twould 'ardly be fair, now, to have Barbossa's enemy and victim cursed along with the bony crew. After all, they never said he took the coin, and while he was a pyrate (as Jack assures little Willie), he were also a good pyrate. I 'speck we'll find out in POTCII, though, and I wouldn't put money on it either way, after all, I never guessed who Luke's fatha was, neither, I didn't.

Nart ter be eyecornarclarstic ner nuffink, ah ain't, bot yer feller's site be a meyet dye-dactical, it be there, lass. All that there vowhell shiftin' stuff be right handsome fer a partick-yoular an spee-siffickal nahshunalitee and airah, but it doan cover it all, it don't. Nar it don't indeedy. Conseedair, eef you weel, the Ahn-glish that woood be spoke-can by a Fronch pyrate. Oah dee Eenglash dat a Deutcher-pyrate would yuse. Oah eeffen Oastryan. Air a freebooterr from tha auld sod, blast me sainted mothrs' lights and liver but I'm a-tinkin' he mayt doo a bit o' tha "Lucky Charms" ting. Or what, pray, might be the dialect of a pyrate who wasn't, shall we say, "from the lower decks"? Can't you just imagine a pirate officer with perhaps the aroma of Oxbridge in his diction? The scent of something other than salt bullybeef and tobacco in his upbringing? And the list goes on. Point I'm makin' here, is piratin' is as pyratin' does, and the accent is but a grace note, to fit a personal persona, doncha know? So long as yer cornsistant in yer dye-aleck, it 'ardly matterrs where ye was born, it don't at all, at all. Ye kin "arrgh" and squint and curl yer lip or sniff and snipe and lift your nose ... or not. Just stick to one at a time, though. IMHO anyhow Cheers

Well, mates, if ye can read a bit, then I am obviously a newly on this year board thingy, but in me own not-so-umble opinin', the question is what yer likes ter do, not what some jackanapes, pencil gnawin', clipboard toting ne'erdobad thinks o' what yer doin'. I was a member of a medieval recreation society back in the way dark dim past, and we showed the GPs a fine, entertainin' and occasionally mildy bloody ole time as we whacked and slashed and rolled about on the ground. One o' the boys even took to chewing alkaselzers to foam at the mouth (he was real pop-you-lar with the ladies, you can betcher bottom farthing). But then the organizers got involved. Perhaps it was just that some of the members got old. I dunno, but after a gap of a few years, I went back to an event at this club that I had helped organize and was told I couldn't participate because I wasn't "steel qualified" ... as though some dimp lick with a clipboard was "qualified" to judge me fightin' style. Shine me boots and call me a nancy, that spoilt the biscuit right quick, I kin tell ye. So ... (end of rant) Go to the event, go as histerical as you choose, and if that include eyeliner, well, me bucko, it be a big ocean. And just by the by, while you and I would not wear wool in summer, "period" dress did include wool, which don't shrink, repels water pretty well, and lasts a long long time. Not comfortable, but ask Mr. Arab the Camel Driver about his camel-hair burnoose if'n ye're atall curious about traditional hot weather gear. Smile.

Them are all good'uns, t'be shur, mates. To POTC, the best pyrate movie ever IMHO, please add in Swashbuckler with Genevieve Bujold and Beau Bridges, and Peter Boyle as the heavy. Not much of a movie, but some great pirate ships. Titan AE (pirate aliens destroy the Earth, then pirate humans seak the magic spaceship while battlin' ship to ship among space icebergs ... can't go wrong). Cutthroat Island is a hoot, but Gena's a stick. Gimme Cap'n Blood! Holy technicolor Maureen O'Hara!

Ye just try spendin' yer days being' shot at, started or flogged, draped over a yard in a freezin' gale, yer nights with a hunnert o' yer closest mates sharin' their BO, halitosis, and swamp gas in a room no bigger'n that, awakened every couple o' hours for a turn at the watch, food from a barrel that seen better days when ye was still soilin' yer knickers, and cap all that fun off with the chance o' dying from disease, violence, ack-sea-dent, drownding or murthering crewmates mad with the grog they stole from the locker, and Ah'm guessin' ye'd be a might grouchy, too. But it beats clarkin', fer shur, and nobody get's out o' this life alive, anyway.

Ah don't know about any "walkthru" interiors, but if you want a great description, read some Patrick O'Brian (Master and Commander) or rent the movie. Think damp, smelly and cramped. The men slept in ranked rows and tiers of hammocks, packed like sardines with 18" of space on a good day, until some o' yer mates dropped dead and left you the room. Eating was communal (a mess of four to eight sharing a lump o' meat and hardtack) and personal gear consisted o' what ye wore, and a small box o' treasures like a comb and a locket. On the bright side, on deck, ye had the world from horizon to horizon (unless there was an enemy closer) and all the space between the deck and the top. No wonder them pyrates was so mean. Most stayed in port, slept in beds whenever possible and ventured out in coasters, day-trippin' their murderin' and thievin' and such. I believe one of the HMS Victory websites has interior shots, but that was/is a great huge vessel, compared with any pyrate ship. Cheers.