Yo-ho-ho!
Piracy has been a serious scourge for thousands of years. Because piracy threatens freedom of navigation and other lawful uses of the ocean, international law has since antiquity considered piracy a crime against humanity as a whole. This history explains the title of Steven Johnson’s book The Enemy of All Mankind.
Why then have pirates so captured our imaginations? From Robert Louis Stevenson to J.M. Barrie to the creators of Disney World, pirates have attained the sort of romantic status not commonly associated with other types of criminals. It is hard to imagine, for example, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta on the Perjurers of Penzance or a series of hit films featuring the Carjackers of the Caribbean.
In searching for a quote about pirates and piracy, we looked for one that gave voice to the tension between the often barbarous acts of pirates and the unusual mythology surrounding them. The one we stumbled upon rather pinned us to our seats. We also found a plethora of words and phrases associated with pirates to sprinkle into the puzzle, including a reference to a famous Pittsburgh Pirate, Ralph Kiner. And as for William S. Gilbert, hats off to anyone who thinks to rhyme “lot o’ news” with “hypotenuse”! But why, pray tell, are those facts about the square of the hypotenuse “cheerful”? Any theories out there?
Another treasure of an acrostic! After my first pass through the clues gave me just errata, lards, Kiner and a few suffixes, I muttered, “Aargh!” The next pass jogged my memory of abaft and a guess at mutter. Toggling back and forth by guessing at parts of words in the quote slowly started to yield nuggets and everything finally came together even though I had to learn hypotenuse (in the G&S context), octothorpe, Offenbach, Alabama (in connection to Maersk), idiopathic and Defoe. Seems like kind of a miracle really, but it was highly pleasurable to ultimately accomplish. Thank you, Mateys!
I happened to tackle the Acrostic after completing the Friday NY Times crossword, which had (as 15A) the clue “Members of the family Passeridae.” That certainly helped to jump-start my solve.
Some favorite clues included those for HYPOTENUSE, NUFF SAID, RACY, and SMEE. I was stuck arriving at OFFENBACH for a while, as the only barcarolle which came to mind was the lovely piano composition by Chopin.
It wasn’t mentioned in David and Jane’s remarks, but September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day:
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day
A coincidence? I think not!
Methinks t’would be better to be keelhauled than to miss out on such a swell Acrostic. Nice one.
Hypotenuse was my starter. My late, math teacher dad may have had a theory on its cheerful facts. He was also an avid G&S fan, and we had sing-alongs at home. So with the Major-General’s song happily humming away in my head, I enjoyed navigating my way through this acrostic. Thanks for the clip and journey down memory lane.
It’s fun to see thematic clues, but it’s especially satisfying when they creep up on you. “Small, social passerine bird” seems to have nothing to do with the theme, and even the answer, SPARROW, isn’t obviously related until you note it’s the name of a terrifying pirate. The Pittsburgh outfielder named KINER is even more oblique – the team’s name is the Pirates. The Major-General’s cheery facts about the HYPOTENUSE are from The Pirates of Penzance. You’ll find more.
Speaking of that song, W. S. Gilbert includes this remarkably apt couplet:
I know our mythic history, King Arthur’s and Sir Caradoc’s,
I answer hard acrostics, I’ve a pretty taste for paradox.
Aargh mateys, what a nautical delight this acrostic was. A tip of the hat for slipping in a sly reference to former Pittsburgh Pirate, Ralph Kiner. TIL that the pound sign/hashtag can also be called an OCTOTHORPE. Luckily I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery and precisely what is meant by commisariat, and thus managed to solve this one in ship shape fashion.
No puns to add, thankfully! Kudos to Jim Horner for finding those buried treasures. Nice time, as always, good puzzle, good comments. Thanks to all
I got the theme pretty early – not sure why SPARROW came immediately, but it did. “Cheerful” – mainly because it scans, but also I think the Major General does everything cheerfully…He’s an enthusiast of many things…Another wonderful diversion for our fortnightly weekend!
This turned out to be a strikingly fast solve for me and my cosolver, because we got every clue answer in the first column from sparrow to egg whites.
The remaining clues were much iffier for us, but with all the letters from the first nine clues, we were able to go to town on the quote, so after a few back and forths, we got the music and the confetti.
I love the Major-General song, so it was fun to see it mentioned.
The quote was a bit grim, however, and I hope future ones are at least somewhat sunnier.
PS I think the reason the many facts about the square of the hypotenuse are “cheerful” is because scansion.
We had fun “diving into” the world of mischief on the main — including finding a way to insert an extra aquatic allusion by cluing the [otherwise unthematic] answer “Offenbach” with “barcarolle” (a traditional Venetian boat song). Meanwhile, TIL the meaning of the acronym “TIL.” And we must confess not to have been aware of the timely “Talk Like a Pirate Day” tie-in. Thanks for all your insights and witticisms.