"blergh" (and "argh")

[Rick Barr]

I meant to tack this short post on to the thread a while ago, but it was
just today that I finally chanced upon the book once more at a bookstore. I
just wanted to note that there is a whole chapter dedicated to the word
"Arrgh" in an entire book dedicated to the language of pirates. The book is
George Choundas's *The Pirate Primer* (2007), and chapter 15 tackles
"Arrgh." The book is featured on Amazon.com here:
http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Primer-Mastering-Language-Swashbucklers/dp/1582974896

Google Books offers no previews of the book, alas.

<http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Primer-Mastering-Language-Swashbucklers/dp/1582974896>--
Rick


On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Benjamin Zimmer <
bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "blergh" (and "argh")
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 9:42 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Both "ARRGGGGGHHHH!!!!" and "BLEEAH!!" - perhaps with minor spelling
> > variations - featured prominently (at least to my mind) in Schulz's
> > "Peanuts" strips of the late '50s and early '60s.
> >
> > "BLEEAH!!" expressed distaste.  Charlie Brown frequently said
> > "ARRGGGGGHHHH!!" when life or Lucy had dealt him another blow.
> >
> > CB's "ARRGGGGGHHHH!!" was semantically distinct from that of Robert
> Newton
> > as Long John Silver, originator, it seems, of the pirate "Argh!"  (If
> > Wallace Beery used it in his earlier version of _Treasure Island_ , which
> I
> > doubt, it made no impression on me.)
> >
> > Newton's was apparently a West Country variant of "Ah!"
>
> More on Newton and his possible models for arrr-fulness here:
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002482.html
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003597.html
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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