General

Wrecking the good pirate’s name

Lovers of folksy swashbucklers are not fans of the Somali variety

The antics of pirates off the coast of Somalia have dominated headlines. And it’s been nothing but a big headache for enthusiasts of the other kind of pirates: the “aaar-matey” variety. Fans of the swashbuckling, skull-and-crossbones kind of pirate, who like to dress up as modern-day Blackbeards, say the Somali teenagers with their AK-47s are ruining the pirate’s folksy image and are nothing like the sailors who roamed the seas in the late 17th century. “We’re trying to take something bad [from history] and make it halfway decent,” one pirate impersonator tells the Wall Street Journal. “They’re not helping us at all.”
Wall Street Journal

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