Pirated Language

A generation ago, in Western countries, the lives and activities of pirates were the stuff of romantic children’s stories, like J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, or of the music hall, like a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. 

After the turn of the 21st century, then, when modern-day piracy began to occur off the coast of Somalia, the West seemed almost to tolerate a certain level of criminal behavior from the Somalis: Indeed, one might almost have asked, who could blame them? After all, civil war had ravaged their land, and foreigners, through overfishing and the dumping of toxic waste, had ravaged their waters, depleted their fish, and deprived their economy of a viable industry. For a time, Somali piracy seemed (at least from an armchair view) just part of the cost of doing business “on the high seas.” 

Last week, however, any remaining vestige of romance associated with pirates was dispelled, when Somali pirates barbarically murdered four people on board their own yacht in the Indian Ocean. The event was quickly eclipsed by the barbarism still being suffered by many more people on what had once been known as the Barbary Coast.

Sometimes, when great uncontrollable disasters rage around the globe, there is comfort in focusing on more controllable details in one’s own corner of the globe. This week’s post is about pirates—not last week’s barbaric executioners, but the pirates of childhood memory and rainy-day adventures—of “forts” made from afghans (when  afghans were colorfully crocheted lap robes, not citizens of a war-torn country), and of swords that were wooden spoons.  In childhood fiction, pirates were considered bold adventurers, their rough exteriors only serving to hide their soft and sentimental side or their Robinhoodlike nobility. It is those pirates that Ms. Picky is thinking about today, as she discusses the derivation of some “pirate” terminology.

Barbaric. From the Ancient Greek “barbar,” meaning to babble in a foreign (non-Greek) language. The word came to refer to any non-Greek people, who, by virtue of Greek xenophobia, were considered uncivilized, uncultured, and socially undeveloped.  

Berber. A people from the Maghreb (the middle and western coastal regions of North Africa), now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. The Greeks considered the people of the Maghreb as one of the barbar peoples, and eventually this people adapted the Greeks’ name for them, calling themselves the “Berbers.”

Barbary Coast. The north coast of Africa, where the Berbers came from, so named by the Europeans, centuries after the Greeks first coined the word “barbar.” In the West today, the words “Barbary Coast” evoke the old region’s pirates and slave traders, who attacked ships and coastal settlements in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic and captured and traded slaves from Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

Booty. From the Middle French “butin,” meaning “plunder taken” (as in war), loot, swag, or stolen property. 

 

Buccaneer.  One of the privateer groups who attacked Spanish ships in the Caribbean during the late seventeenth century, the original buccaneers were pirates from another failed state, not Somalia, but Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The term was derived from an old French word, boucane, which was in turn was derived from a Caribbean-region indigenous-language word, boucan, which was a wooden frame the islanders used for smoking meat. The indigenous population on Hispaniola having been decimated, the island’s forests became a haven for runaway slaves, mutinous sailors and soldiers, and convicts, who survived by hunting the goats and cattle left behind by the Spanish and since gone wild. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Spanish began a land offensive against the wild and fierce “people who smoked meat,” which led them to take to piracy. It was the English settlers in Jamaica who first used the name “buccaneers” specifically to mean pirates.

Corsair. Originally, a pirate of the Mediterranean (the name taken from the island of Corsica). Corsairs (or corsaires, in French) were privateers, authorized by France to conduct raids on ships of any nation at war with France. Vessels and cargo seized by corsairs were sold at auction, with the corsair captain entitled to a portion of the proceeds. Because corsairs gained a swashbuckling reputation, the word “corsair” is also used generically today as a more romantic or flamboyant way of referring to pirates.

Freebooter. A pirate in business for himself, rather than in the employ of any government. (Compare with privateer and corsair.)

Galley. An ancient ship propelled by oars, the oarsmen being, usually, slaves, their slavery having derived from their being either convicted criminals or prisoners of war. Even today, we refer to someone who is working very hard as working like a “galley slave.”

Jolly Roger. The white skull and crossbones on a black ground that we consider today as the flag of the pirate. The most general assumption of the origin of the term is that it came from the French words “jolie rouge,” meaning “pretty red” (with the color red used as a symbol of blood) and referring to a plain red flag that was flown by a pirate ship that would fight to the death, with no quarter given. Other pirate ships that flew black flags, would, if the ship they attacked gave up its plunder, spare its crew.

Man-o’-War. A pirate ship outfitted for battle. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the man-of-war was armed by cannon and propelled by sails and was the most powerful type of armed ship of its day.

Privateers. Pirates who were in business not for themselves, but for a particular nation, e.g., French corsairs. Although not part of the French navy, corsairs were considered legitimate combatants in France, if the commanding officer of the vessel were in possession of a valid Letter of Marque, and the officers and crew conducted themselves according to contemporary admiralty law. Because they were considered to be acting on behalf of a nation at war, privateers, if they were captured by the enemy, were supposed to be treated like prisoners of war, and not like criminals.

Swashbuckler. An adventurer or a daring person. The word originated before the height of piracy, and was used to mean a swaggering braggart or ruffian. “Swash” meant to make a noise by striking one’s shield or buckle; hence, someone who went around making a lot of noise, drawing attention to himself, and challenging all comers.

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Bulletin Board

For S.G.: If you no longer love your country, then you may feel free to call yourself an “ex-patriot.” If what you mean, however, is that you no longer live in your country, then you are an “expatriate.”

For M.B.: In answer to your question about the Bloomberg News quote, the construction “being as” should never be used as a subordinate conjunction. “Since” or “because” should have been used instead:

Since their earnings fell short of expectations, 

we expected to see the price drop.

This blog is now read in Canada, China, Croatia, France, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, the U.K., the U.S., and Vietnam, but not on the Barbary Coast.