CHECK IT OUT:Yo ho! Time to talk like a pirate

A pirate’s life we lead. Johnny Depp (Capt. Jack Sparrow) and Yul Brynner (Jean Lafitte) notwithstanding, pirates — and the lives they led — were not glamorous.

Though there were enormous rewards granted to successful pirates, the human costs of raiding ships and the grotesque punishments meted out if caught are not really the stuff of Hollywood movies.

Piracy itself goes back in time as far as men traded by sea. Piracy also had its periods when it flourished more than others, most notably when nations were at war and the various navies were otherwise engaged.

Piracy, as we think of it these days, began around the time the New World was being explored and the Spanish, in particular, began sending shiploads of gold and silver back to Spain.

And not coincidentally, around this time, we get the term privateer. A privateer is really a pirate, but one sanctioned by a sovereign to engage in piracy on behalf of the nation.

So a pirate who carried a “letter of Marque” was given leave by his home country to be a criminal. Of course, the victimized country didn’t see it the same way. (See, “Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate” by Harry Kelsey.)

And just to keep up with the proper lingo, a corsair is a pirate, but one who operated in the Mediterranean Sea along the Barbary Coast. By extension, a corsair is also a swift pirate ship.

Buccaneers, on the other hand, began on Hispaniola (today’s Haiti and Dominican Republic) as people who roasted meat on a boucan.

So a buccaneer was originally a barbecuer, but by 1690, we have written evidence that the word was used to describe pirates who worked the Caribbean. For a complete description of the New World brigands of the sea, see David Marley’s “Pirates and Privateers of the Americas” and Kris Lane’s “Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500-1750.”

Scholarly research aside, most of us have been captivated by pirates ever since reading Barrie’s “Peter Pan” and Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.”

Please note that life on a pirate ship was very difficult, so it is unlikely that a real pirate carried a pet parrot around on his shoulder all the time. More than likely, the parrot would have been considered food.

The peg leg, however, is accurate. If Long John Silver managed to survive the amputation, his false appendage would have been fashioned of items found on board. Ditto for Capt. Hook’s hook.

So why all this pirate talk? Because National Talk Like a Pirate Day is on the horizon, and the staff at the Balboa Branch Library is planning to celebrate in fine style. So if you are a pirate aficionado, don’t miss the annual buccaneer celebration Tuesday at the Balboa Branch of the Newport Beach Public Library, 100 E. Balboa Blvd.

There will be crafts for the kids (and young at heart) and displays from the Library’s excellent Nautical Collection of books, tapes and classic pirate films (including “Captain Blood,” “High Wind in Jamaica,” and “Master of Ballantrae.”)

And — don’t tell anyone — but sometime in the afternoon, there is a promised visit from a certain well-known captain who has a price on his head.

To help you brush up on your pirate lingo for Talk Like A Pirate Day, here are a few words it be best ye be remembering: