A pirate saying?

[Fluen]

I'm currently playing Tropico 2 - Pirate Cove. The creators of the game have included funny things in the thoughts of both pirates, wealthy hostages and slave workers.

Some pirates wonder, why the currency is named pieces of eight, not nine or ten.

Other pirates get it wrong, it's arrr, not arrgh.

And some of the pirates wonder: "Ahoy me Chippies! Hmm. That gives me an idea."

I suspect the above quote refers to some pirate saying. Is anyone able to figure out, what that quote refers to?

 

[MrMundy]

I remember them saying something very similar to that stuff in Tropico 1; just without the pirate-ness. They also used "Chippie" and such very often in Monkey Island, so that might be it.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

The only historical context I can put to it is that "chippie" was slang used through to the early 1960's for a prostitute or a woman of loose morals, and there is no record of it being used prior to 1886. This is not to be confused with "chippy", meaning a purveyor of fried chips (pomme frites) or someone who is easily given to outbursts of anger.

That said, goodness knows what the Tropico writers were driving at. It's not any pirate slang I've ever encountered in over fifteen years of research.

 

[Grey Roger]

It can also be a slang term for a carpenter, or for a chipping sparrow.

Regarding the spelling: slang, by its nature, is informal, so the distinction between "chippie" and "chippy" may not be that clear cut. In any case, the plural of "chippy" would probably be "chippies", the word quoted in the first post.

 

[Fluen]

Strange, when I looked it up, the dictionary said "hot-headed" or "of heated temper. That would fit perfectly with a Tropico 1-world with easily disagreeing (and probably dissatisfied) voters on a democratic island. So I understood it to be a reference to Tropico 1 and not to the lore of pirates.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

A quick-tempered carpenter with loose morals, then. Who says you can't have it all?