| Pirates on Wednesdays 
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Welcome to Pirates on Wednesdays. Wednesday, December 31, 2003 |
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Here is an amalgamation of trivial facts and seemingly useless data. Do not forget to hit the hyperlinks. We have links, lots of them. 
From the Radixionary |
| BLACKGUARD |
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A man who behaves in a dishonourable or contemptible way. It’s sad that this contemptuous term for a scoundrel has fallen out of use, since it carries a big punch. Our usual pronunciation as “blaggard” obscures its curious composition. Who or what was the black guard that got itself such a dreadful reputation? If I had a time machine handy, I’d go back to about 1500 and ask some pointed questions of Londoners. Failing this device, matters have to remain somewhat obscure. The earliest recorded use, by a few years, was in 1535. Then it referred to low menials in a royal or noble household. They were the ones who looked after the pots and pans and other kitchen utensils: the scullions or kitchen-knaves. Nobody knows for sure why they were said to be black—perhaps the colour of the pots literally or figuratively rubbed off on them. A slightly later sense is of the rabble that followed an army about: the servants, camp-followers and general hangers-on (here black presumably has its common derogatory sense). There seems to be a third sense, which refers to a guard of attendants or soldiers who were dressed in black; it’s possible that there really was a Black Guard—so called—at Westminster about this time (there are account records that refer to them, but nobody has any idea who they actually were). By the eighteenth century, the term was applied to children and young people who made a living any way they could, either as boot blacks or general assistants to soldiers (presumably this was a joke on the literal form of the word). Our modern sense appeared about 1730, and was a highly offensive term for a scoundrel or villain, or any low worthless minor criminal. |
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DAVY JONES’ LOCKER 
We do know that the phrase goes back at least two centuries, since the first clear reference comes from Tobias Smollett, who wrote in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle in 1751 that: “This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes, ship-wrecks, and other disasters to which sea-faring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe”. So his locker is the bottom of the sea, the ocean’s depths. So much for facts. There are various stories about the origin of the term, usually attempting to identify a real David Jones. One of this name was said to run a pub in London, with a neat sideline—a sort of privatised press gang—of drugging unwary patrons and storing them in his ale lockers at the back of the pub until they could be taken on board some ship. Another story tries to identify him with Jonah of the Old Testament, who—you will recall—spent three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish; but Jonah survived. Yet a third theory says, as you suggest, that Davy Jones was a fearsome pirate, who loved to make his captives walk the plank, so they ended up at the bottom of the sea; but nobody, so far as I know, has identified this alarming outlaw. We can be fairly certain that all these stories are folklore. The real Davy Jones—if there ever was one—remains obscure. |
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| We knew that sailors used the phrase to refer to the bottom of the ocean, but we had no clue as to its origin. After entering the phrase "Davy Jones Locker" in the Yahoo! search bar, we discovered several possibilities: |
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| Where has all the Rum gone? 
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| Pirates! 
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We must acknowledge once and for all that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis.
... Spock, "The Mark of Gideon," stardate 5423.4.. |
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| One of the most dreaded pirates of all was Edward Teach, or Blackbeard. To make himself look terrifying during a raid, he used to braid lit hemp fuses into his hair and bread. The same kind of fuse to light cannons. These fuses burned slowly and smoked. He looked like he was on fire. Some time between 1716 and 1718, Blackbeard attacked many ships during this time and it was the governor of Virginia who sent two Navy ships to capture him. After a long battle, Blackbeard was killed. |
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HEBESPHENOMEGACORONA 
We’re into one of the more arcane areas of three-dimensional geometry here. This figure is a polyhedron, a solid figure with flat faces. It was given this name in 1969 by Viktor Zalgaller, in an article in which he proved an abstruse result about a set of irregular polyhedra called the Johnson solids. These polyhedra are named after N W Johnson, who had suggested three years earlier that there were just 92 of them. Mr Zalgaller proved this was so and gave each of the 92 polyhedra a unique name. Hebesphenomegacorona can be split into four parts as hebe (from the Latin word for “blunt”), spheno (from the Greek for “wedge”), mega (Greek, “great”), and corona (Latin, “crown”), so making a “large, blunt, wedge-shaped crown”. He came up with many splendid names for other members of the set, like square dipyramid, pentagonal orthocupolarontunda, gyrobifastigium, metabidiminished rhombicosidododecahedron, snub disphenoid, gyroelongated disphenocingulum, elongated pentagonal gyrocupolarotunda, and triangular orthobicupola. I will lay heavy odds against you finding any of them in even the largest dictionaries. |
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| Dr. Seusss does Pirates. |
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| We are counting cards. 
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| Happy Birthday Odetta 1930
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| Parrots and Pirates Together again. 
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| Happy Birthday Anthony Hopkins 1937 
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Talk like a pirate |
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| Happy Birthday Sarah Miles 1941 
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| Spock the Pirate Caught in a spectacular ion storm during a planetside visit, Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Lt. Uhura, and Cmdr. Scott attempt a return to the Enterprise ("Mirror, Mirror"), but the transporter malfunctions. They find themselves aboard a strangely changed Enterprise, where Starfleet Command insignia have changed to a dagger-through-a-world symbol, and Mr. Spock has a sinister-looking beard. It is a parallel or "mirror universe" with everything opposite to the one they know; on this Enterprise, crewmen are punished with "The Agonizer," advancement is through assassination and the mirror-Kirk has a mistress who is very ambitious, but loves her Captain. Uhura distracts the evil mirror-Lt. Sulu so Scotty can require the transporter for a return to their own universe. Scotty succeeds, but not before both Marlena and the mirror-Spock try to stop them. Kirk's silver-tongued logic prevails, and the mirror-Spock allows them to leave. Humans smile with so little provocation.
... Spock, "Journey to Babel," stardate 3842.3.. 
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| I am an excellent driver. 
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| Happy Birthday Donna Summer 1948 
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| On this day: 1970 - Paul McCartney filed a suit to dissolve the Beatles.
1971 - The Beatles broke up. |
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| Pirate jokes 
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| Would you like a Treasure Chest with your Pirates on Wednesdays? 
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| Todays Wednesday field trip takes us to the Barbary Coast. |
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| On this day: 1687 - The first Huguenots set sail from France for the Cape of Good Hope, where they would later create the South African wine industry with the vines they took with them on the voyage. What do you know about South Africa? |
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"Never put off until tomorrow that which can be done the day after tomorrow."
- Mark Twain |
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| Everyone can have a Pirate name. |
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| On this day: 1862 - U.S. President Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union. |
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| Pi .. Rates 
As we know, the value of pi is a transcendental figure without resolution. ... Spock, "Wolf in the Fold," stardate 3615.4.. 
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| On this day: 1879 - Thomas Edison gave his first public demonstration of incandescent lighting to an audience in Menlo Park, NJ. What a great idea!.. 
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| On this day: 1897 - Brooklyn, NY spent its last day as a separate entity before becoming part
of New York City. 
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| the only known pirate ship discovered in North America 
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| On this day: 1946 - U.S. President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II. About a hundred dollars The Buck stops here! |
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| On this day: 1974 - Private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the
first time in more than 40 years. 
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| On this day: 1990 - Titleholder Gary Kasparov of the U.S.S.R. won the world chess championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov. I am an excellent Chess player. 
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| 1997 - Michael Kennedy, 39-year-old son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado. |
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| Please drink your Rum responsibly tonight. Happy New Year Troops! Thank you for your Service |
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| Pirates Wednesdays |
| Definitely |
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