English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 17

A poor woman who is about to be robbed shrieks out for help; when the villain says to her:--'Not another word or I'll stick you like a pig and give you your guts for garters.' ('Ir. Penny Magazine.')

A man very badly off--all in rags:--'He has forty-five ways of getting into his coat now.' (MacCall: Wexford.)

A great miser--very greedy for money:--He heard the money jingling in his mother's pockets before he was born. (MacCall: Wexford.)

A drunken man is a terrible curse, But a drunken woman is twice as worse; For she'd drink Lough Erne dry.

(MACCALL.)

To a person who habitually uses unfortunate blundering expressions:--'You never open your mouth but you put your foot in it.'

A girl to express that it is unlikely she will ever be married says: 'I think, miss, my husband's intended mother died an old maid.' ('Penelope in Ireland.') {129}

A young man speaking of his sweetheart says, in the words of the old song:--

'I love the ground she walks upon, _mavourneen gal mochree_'

(thou fair love of my heart).

A conceited pompous fellow approaches:--'Here comes _half the town_!' A translation from the Irish _leath an bhaile_.

Billy Heffernan played on his fife a succession of jigs and reels that might 'cure a paralytic' [and set him dancing]. ('Knocknagow.')

In 'Knocknagow' Billy Heffernan being requested to play on his fife longer than he considered reasonable, asked did they think that he had the bellows of Jack Delany the blacksmith in his stomach?

Said of a great swearer:--'He'd swear a hole in an iron pot.'

Of another:--'He'd curse the bladder out of a goat.'

Of still another:--'He could quench a candle at the other side of the kitchen with a curse.'

A person is much puzzled, or is very much elated, or his mind is disturbed for any reason:--'He doesn't know whether it is on his head or his heels he's standing.

A penurious miserable creature who starves himself to h.o.a.rd up:--He could live on the smell of an oil-rag. (Moran: Carlow.)

A man complaining that he has been left too long fasting says:--'My stomach will think that my throat is cut.' (MacCall: Wexford.)

'Do you like the new American bacon?' 'Oh not at all: I tried it once and that's enough for me: _I_ {130} _wouldn't touch it with a tongs._' Very common and always used in depreciation as here.

We in Ireland are much inclined to redundancy in our speech. It is quite observable--especially to an outsider--that even in our ordinary conversation and in answering simple questions we use more words than we need. We hardly ever confine ourselves to the simple English _yes_ or _no_; we always answer by a statement. 'Is it raining, Kitty?' 'Oh no sir, it isn't raining at all.' 'Are you going to the fair to-day?' 'No indeed I am not.' 'Does your father keep on the old business still?' 'Oh yes certainly he does: how could he get on without it?' 'Did last night's storm injure your house?' 'Ah you may well say it did.' A very distinguished Dublin scholar and writer, having no conscious leanings whatever towards the Irish language, mentioned to me once that when he went on a visit to some friends in England they always observed this peculiarity in his conversation, and often laughed at his roundabout expressions. He remarked to me--and an acute remark it was--that he supposed there must be some peculiarity of this kind in the Irish language; in which conjecture he was quite correct.

For this peculiarity of ours--like many others--is borrowed from the Irish language, as anyone may see for himself by looking through an Irish book of question and answer, such as a Catechism. 'Is the Son G.o.d?' 'Yes certainly He is.' 'Will G.o.d reward the good and punish the wicked?' 'Certainly: there is no doubt He will.' 'Did G.o.d always exist?' 'He did; because He has neither beginning nor end.' And questions and answers like these--from Donlevy's {131} Irish Catechism for instance--might be given to any length.

But in many other ways we show our tendency to this wordy overflow--still deriving our mannerism from the Irish language--that is to say, from modern and middle Irish. For in very old Irish--of the tenth, eleventh, and earlier centuries for instance, the tendency is the very reverse. In the specimens of this very old language that have come down to us, the words and phrases are so closely packed, that it is impossible to translate them either into English or Latin by an equal number of words.[3] But this old language is too far off from us to have any influence in our present every-day English speech; and, as already remarked, we derive this peculiarity from modern Irish, or from middle Irish through modern. Here is a specimen in translation of over-worded modern Irish (Battle of Gavra, p.

141), a type of what was very common:--'Diarmuid himself [fighting]

continued in the enjoyment of activity, strength, and vigour, without intermission of action, of weapons, or of power; until at length he dealt a full stroke of his keen hard-tempered sword on the king's head, by which he clove the skull, and by a second stroke swept his head off his huge body.'

Examples like this, from Irish texts, both modern and middle, might be multiplied to any extent.

{132}

But let us now have a look at some of our Anglo-Irish redundancies, mixed up as they often are with exaggeration. A man was going to dig by night for a treasure, which of course had a supernatural guardian, like all hidden treasures, and what should he see running towards him but 'a great big red mad bull, with fire flaming out of his eyes, mouth, and nose.' (Ir. Pen.

Mag.) Another man sees a leprechaun walking up to him--'a weeny deeny dawny little atomy of an idea of a small taste of a gentleman.' (_Ibid._) Of a person making noise and uproar you will be told that he was roaring and screeching and bawling and making a terrible hullabulloo all through the house.

Of an emaciated poor creature--'The breath is only just in and out of him, and the gra.s.s doesn't know of him walking over it.'

'The gentlemen are not so pleasant _in themselves_' [now as they used to be]. (Gerald Griffin.) Expressions like this are very often heard: 'I was dead in myself,' i.e., I felt dull and lifeless.

[Dermot struck the giant and] 'left him dead without life.' ('Dermot and Grainne.') Further on we find the same expression--_marbh gan anam_, dead without life. This Irish expression is constantly heard in our English dialect: 'he fell from the roof and was _killed dead_.'

Oh brave King Brian, he knew the way To keep the peace and to make the hay: For those who were bad he cut off their head; And those who were worse he killed them dead.

Similarly the words 'dead and buried' are used all through Munster:--Oh indeed poor Jack Lacy is {133} dead and buried for the last two years: or 'the whole family are dead and gone these many years.'

A very common Irish expression is 'I invited _every single one_ of them.'

This is merely a translation from Irish, as we find in 'Gabhra':--_Do bhearmaois gach aon bhuadh_: we were wont to win every single victory.

'We do not want any single one of them,' says Mr. Hamilton Fyfe ('Daily Mail'). He puts the saying into the mouth of another; but the phraseology is probably his own: and at any rate I suppose we may take it as a phrase from Scotch Gaelic, which is all but the same as Irish Gaelic.

Emphatic particles and words, especially the p.r.o.nouns with _self_, are often used to excess. I heard a highly educated fellow-countryman say, 'I must say myself that I don't believe it': and I am afraid I often use such expressions myself. 'His companions remained standing, but he found it more convenient to sit down himself.' A writer or speaker has however to be on his guard or he may be led into a trap. A writer having stated that some young ladies attended a cookery-cla.s.s, first merely looking on, goes on to say that after a time they took part in the work, and soon learned _to cook themselves_.

I once heard a man say:--'I disown the whole family, _seed, breed and generation_.' Very common in Ireland. Goldsmith took the expression from his own country, and has immortalised it in his essay, 'The Distresses of a Common Soldier.'

He was on the tip-top of the steeple--i.e., the very top. This expression is extended in application: that {134} meadow is tip-top, i.e., very excellent: he is a tip-top hurler. 'By no means' is sometimes expanded:--'I asked him to lend me a pound, but he answered that _by no manner of means_ would he do any such thing.'

'If you do that you'll be crying down salt tears,' i.e., 'you'll deeply regret it.' _Salt tears_ is however in Shakespeare in the same sense.

('Hen. VI.')

'Down with you now on your two bended knees and give thanks to G.o.d.'

If you don't stop, I'll wring the head off o' your neck. (Rev. Maxwell Close.)

The roof of the house fell down on the top of him. (Father Higgins.)

The Irish _air se_ ('says he') is very often repeated in the course of a narrative. It is correct in Irish, but it is often heard echoed in our English where it is incorrect:--And says he to James 'where are you going now?' says he.

In a trial in Dublin a short time ago, the counsel asked of witness:--'Now I ask you in the most solemn manner, had you hand, act, or part in the death of Peter Heffernan?'

A young man died after injuries received in a row, and his friend says:--'It is dreadful about the poor boy: they made at him in the house and killed him there; then they dragged him out on the road and killed him entirely, so that he lived for only three days after. I wouldn't mind if they shot him at once and put an end to him: but to be murdering him like that--it is terrible.'

The fairy says to Billy:--'I am a thousand years old to-day, and I think it is time for me to get {135} married.' To which Billy replies:--'I think it is quite time without any kind of doubt at all.' (Crofton Croker.)

The squire walks in to Patrick's cabin: and Patrick says:--'Your honour's honour is quite welcome entirely.' (Crofton Croker.)

An expression you will often hear even in Dublin:--'Lend me the loan of your umbrella.'

'She doats down on him' is often used to express 'She is very fond of him.'

'So, my Kathleen, you're going to leave me All alone by myself in this place.'

(LADY DUFFERIN.)