Excel Can Talk Like a Pirate

Talk like a pirate in Excel

Did you know that today is Talk Like a Pirate Day? It’s not as awesome as Spreadsheet Day, obviously, but it could add some fun to your workday!

Official Website

There’s an official website for Talk Like a Pirate Day, where you can learn more about the day’s origins, and get tips on talking like a pirate.

The founders also made a Sing Along video, with clips of people, dressed as pirates, and singing that old favourite sea shanty, “Drunken Sailor”.

I’ve put that video at the end of this page, so you can sing along, while your work on your Excel formulas and pivot tables.

Excel Talks Like a Pirate

In the screen shot below, you can see that Excel is joining in the “Talk Like a Pirate Day” fun.

  • A + AR + RR + RRR = “AARRRRRR”

Side Note: I sometimes say, “AARRRRRR!”, when things go wrong in Excel, which can happen any day of the year!

Excel headings for Talk Like a Pirate Day
Excel headings for Talk Like a Pirate Day

Talk Like a Pirate Excel Formula

Here’s the formula that I used in row 1, to show the column heading letters in the cells:

  • =SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1, COLUMN(), 4, 1), 1,””)

Here’s how the above formula works, to return the column heading letter:

  • Excel COLUMN function returns the column number
  • ADDRESS function returns a relative reference to the cell in row 1, in that column number, e.g. A1
  • SUBSTITUTE function replaces the number 1, with an empty string

There are more SUBSTITUTE examples on my Contextures site.

Excel Rows and Columns

In the early versions of Excel, each worksheet only had 256 columns, and 65000 rows, so it wasn’t possible to make the column headings say “AARRRRRR!”

Back in those days (Excel 2003 and earlier), I remember people begging Microsoft to expand the sheets to at least 365 columns – one for each day of the year.

Thankfully, Microsoft listened, and since Excel 2007 was released, we’ve had 16384 columns, and 1048576 rows. That’s way more than we asked for!

Anyway, back in the olden days, you could make a different pirate word, using those 256 columns. Can you guess what it is?

The answer is in the next section.

Talk Like a Pirate Excel 2003

In the screen shot below, you can see the pirate word that I found in the column headings, if you were using Excel 2003 or earlier, with only 256 columns.

Those heading letters went from A to IV, and I used 5 column headings.

  • A + AR + GG + GH + HH = “AARGGGHHH”

Do you know of any other pirate words that Excel can say, using the column headings?

Talk like a pirate in Excel
Talk like a pirate in Excel

Video: Talk Like a Pirate Day Sing Along

Anyway, whatever version of Excel you’re using, have a Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, and step away from the computer for a while, to enjoy the day!

Here’s the Drunken Sailor video, so you can sing along, until your co-workers ask you to stop!

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