To all Nautical Acquisition Specialists:

[Dennis K.]

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day (http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html)


Time flies when yer havin’ rum.

I think we’ve arrived at a very special place spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically…

Savvy?

[Gray Wolf]

I'll drink to that!

[Tony uk]

Yarrrr Matey, Good link :)

[sobeit]

Pass the rum

[vanguard1]

people drink too much ...

Arrrrrrrr, well doncha worry yer silly self o'er some partakin' of ye rum matey - we've also plunder'd ou'rselves some fine green kind also - en since you complainin' bout the rum, you can get on the rollin, ye scally wag!

[bulrush]

ARRR! Scallywags, parrots, barnacles, and such.

[Dennis K.]

people drink too much ...

Since this is a survival forum, I'll offer some practical application.
On a pirate ship, they would frequently spend weeks, even months at sea. The drinking water would be kept in a barrel. When one stores water in a barrel that everyone is dipping into, it becomes contaminated quickly.
Rum would be mixed with the water to kill the contaminants. Obviously, they knew nothing of contaminants at the time, but they did know that drinking water with no rum would make you sick. Common pay for pirates included a share of plunder (which was voted on by the crew - surprisingly democratic!), dry food stores (such as cheese, which sometimes got so hard, they could carve it in to quite intricate sculptures), and rum.

[crashdive123]

I can't remember where I read it, but there was a piece about an old sailing ship and how it was provisioned. It listed all of the port calls and a manifest of the supplies taken onboard at each stop. Started with (not sure of the numbers) water, rum, grains, gunpowder..... First stop - more rum, grains, gunpowder..... Second stop - rum, grains, gunpowder..... and so on. When the ship made its final port call - rum was gone, grain was gone......one barrel of water remained (maybe it rained a lot)