We’ll rant and we’ll roar, like true British sailors
We’ll rant and we’ll roar across the salt seas
Until we reach soundings in the Channel of Old England
From Ushant to Scilly ’tis thirty-five leagues.
The islands of Ushant & Scilly mark either side of the English Channel if you enter it from the Atlantic Ocean. Ushant is near France, Scilly near Great Britain.
A pirate. The earliest pirates of the Caribbean were newly-arrived French woodsmen who preserved meat by curing it slowly over a smoky fire so it would last a long time (this was before refrigerators). In the native Carib dialect, boucan was a grill (in Haitian: barbacoa). The French settlers named the process of smoking and curing meat boucaner and called themselves meat-curers—boucaniers.
When Spain drove out the French settlers in the 1690s they turned to piracy. They continued to call themselves boucaniers and there may have been a grim joke in the name—the native Caribs were rumored to be cannibals. Maybe the boucaniers hoped their enemies would associate them with their grisly former neighbors.
Rum diluted with water. On long voyages, sailors might contract scurvy, a disease caused by a lack of Vitamin C. Ship’s doctors eventually realized there is lots of Vitamin C in lemons, so they’d make sure everybody drank their lemon juice by adding it to the grog. Blackbeard Teach liked his with a little gunpowder mixed in.
League
UncategorizedThree miles—roughly the distance a person can walk in an hour.
As the sea-shanty Spanish Ladies tells it:
We’ll rant and we’ll roar, like true British sailors
We’ll rant and we’ll roar across the salt seas
Until we reach soundings in the Channel of Old England
From Ushant to Scilly ’tis thirty-five leagues.
The islands of Ushant & Scilly mark either side of the English Channel if you enter it from the Atlantic Ocean. Ushant is near France, Scilly near Great Britain.
Remember—September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day!
Buccaneer
UncategorizedA pirate. The earliest pirates of the Caribbean were newly-arrived French woodsmen who preserved meat by curing it slowly over a smoky fire so it would last a long time (this was before refrigerators). In the native Carib dialect, boucan was a grill (in Haitian: barbacoa). The French settlers named the process of smoking and curing meat boucaner and called themselves meat-curers—boucaniers.
When Spain drove out the French settlers in the 1690s they turned to piracy. They continued to call themselves boucaniers and there may have been a grim joke in the name—the native Caribs were rumored to be cannibals. Maybe the boucaniers hoped their enemies would associate them with their grisly former neighbors.
Grog
self promotionRum diluted with water. On long voyages, sailors might contract scurvy, a disease caused by a lack of Vitamin C. Ship’s doctors eventually realized there is lots of Vitamin C in lemons, so they’d make sure everybody drank their lemon juice by adding it to the grog. Blackbeard Teach liked his with a little gunpowder mixed in.
September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day!