June 2011
About Irish English
The Leader of the Opposition was astounded after hearing some astonishing news, hence the astonished look on her face and said to me, and I quote: "I am speechless."
She then went on to talk for two and a half hour on the subject that made her speechless in the first place.
It was then I began to realise that words don't really mean what we think they mean, if you know what I mean!
I should understand all this, coming as I do from a country that has its own version of words and phrases.
We have been known to make up words and phrases as we went along, but the amazing thing is, we all understand exactly what was meant: no explanation necessary.
For instance, the lad says to his friend:"Where were you going this morning when I saw you going to work?"
"I was going to work." "I thought it was you but when I caught up with you you were gone." We all understood what was meant.
Don't ask me how and don't ask me to explain.
Us Irish never suffered from Pauline Hansonism.
My mother was a past master at incoherence. I was shopping with her one day. She was looking at eggs and saying loudly: ''Will you look at the size of these eggs. I tell you it wouldn't take many of them to make a dozen." And everyone agreed.
When my mother described a convoy of heavy vehicles travelling through town she assured us there was no danger to the public as a police car followed in front.
No explanation was needed.
Only once did I have to ask my mother for an explanation. It was after a confrontation she said to me: "If you do that once more, I will beat you to within an inch of you life." To that I had to ask for an explanation.
She was goiing to beat me to within one inch of my life and then stop! I never gave her an trouble thereafter in case she was a bit out in her measurements.
In Ireland, you would often hear the phrase: DEM OVER DARE.
Translated, them over there, meaning the people of England.
‘Tis a wonder they ever learned to talk at all, what with knife, thought, tough,cough, plough. It's enough to make you wonder.
We have a great regard for language.
As some one once said:
That Oscar Wilde, he'd be a genius with language even if he wasn't Irish."
For more exposure to Irish English, on the l6th June, Bloomsday. We hope you will all meet at the Post Office at 10 a.m. for the reading of excerpts of James Joyce's Ulysses.
Sean Kramer