English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 11

(POPE: 'Essay on Man.')

In the same essay Pope rhymes _sphere_ with _fair_, showing that he p.r.o.nounced it _sphaire_. Our _hedge_ schoolmaster did the same thing in his song:--

Of all the maids on this terrestrial _sphaire_ Young Molly is the fairest of the fair.

'The plots are fruitless which my foe Unjustly did _conceive_; The pit he digg'd for me has proved His own untimely grave.'

(TATE AND BRADY.)

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Our people generally retain the old sounds of long _e_ and _ei_; for they say _persaive_ for perceive, and _sevare_ for _severe_.

'The pardon he gave me was hard and _sevare_; 'Twas bind him, confine him, he's the rambler from Clare.'

Our Irish way of sounding both _ea_ and long _e_ is exemplified in what I heard a man say--a man who had some knowledge of Shakespeare--about a girl who was becoming somewhat of an old maid: 'She's now getting into the _sair_ and _yallow laif_.'

Observe, the correct old English sound of _ie_ and _ee_ has not changed: it is the same at present in England as it was formerly; and accordingly the Irish people always sound these correctly. They never say _praste_ for priest, _belave_ for believe, _indade_ for indeed, or _kape_ for keep, as some ignorant writers set down.

_Ate_ is p.r.o.nounced _et_ by the educated English. In Munster the educated people p.r.o.nounce it _ait_: 'Yesterday I _ait_ a good dinner'; and when _et_ is heard among the uneducated--as it generally is--it is considered very vulgar.

It appears that in correct old English _er_ was sounded _ar_--Dryden rhymes _certain_ with _parting_--and this is still retained in correct English in a few words, like _sergeant_, _clerk_, &c. Our people retain the old sound in most such words, as _sarvant_, _marchant_, _sartin_. But sometimes in their anxiety to avoid this vulgarity, they overdo the refinement: so that you will hear girls talk mincingly about _derning_ a stocking. This is like what happened in the case of one of our servant girls who took it into her head that {94} _mutton_ was a vulgar way of p.r.o.nouncing the word, like _pudden'_ for _pudding_; so she set out with her new grand p.r.o.nunciation; and one day rather astonished our butcher by telling him she wanted a small leg of _mutting_. I think this vulgarism is heard among the English peasantry too: though we have the honour and glory of evolving it independently.

All over Ireland you will hear the words _vault_ and _fault_ sounded _vaut_ and _faut_. 'If I don't be able to shine it will be none of my _faut_.'

(Carleton, as cited by Hume.) We have retained this sound from old English:

Let him not dare to vent his dangerous thought: A n.o.ble fool was never in a _fault_ [faut].

(POPE, cited by Hume.)

Goldsmith uses this p.r.o.nunciation more than once; but whether he brought it from Ireland or took it from cla.s.sical English writers, by whom it was used (as by Pope) almost down to his time, it is hard to say. For instance in 'The Deserted Village' he says of the Village Master:--

'Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught The love he bore to learning was in _fault_' [faut].

I remember reading many years ago a criticism of Goldsmith by a well-known Irish professor of English literature, in which the professor makes great fun, as a 'superior person,' of the _Hibernicism_ in the above couplet, evidently ignorant of the fact, which Dr. Hume has well brought out, that it is cla.s.sical English. {95}

In many parts of Munster there is a tendency to give the long _a_ the sound of _a_ in _car_, _father_:--

Were I Paris whose deeds are _vaarious_ And _arbithraather_ on Ida's hill.

(Old Folk Song--'The Colleen Rue.')[1]

The _gladiaathers_ both bold and darling, Each night and morning to watch the flowers.

(Old Folk Song--'Castlehyde.')[1]

So, an intelligent peasant,--a born orator, but illiterate in so far as he could neither read nor write,--told me that he was a _spectaathor_ at one of O'Connell's Repeal meetings: and the same man, in reply to a strange gentleman's inquiry as to who planted a certain wood up the hill, replied that the trees were not planted--they grew _spontaan-yus_.

I think this is a remnant of the old cla.s.sical teaching of Munster: though indeed I ought to mention that the same tendency is found in Monaghan, where on every possible occasion the people give this sound to long a.

_D_ before long _u_ is generally sounded like _j_; as in _projuce_ for _produce_: the _Juke_ of Wellington, &c. Many years ago I knew a fine old gentleman from Galway. He wished to make people believe that in the old fighting times, when he was a young man, he was a desperate _gladiaathor_; but he really was a gentle creature who never in all his born days hurt man or mortal. Talking one day to some workmen in Kildare, and recounting his exploits, he told them {96} that he was now _harrished_ every night by the ghosts of all the _min_ he killed in _juels_.

So _s_ before long _u_ is sounded _sh_: Dan Kiely, a well-to-do young farmer, told the people of our neighbourhood that he was now looking out for a wife that would _shoot_ him. This p.r.o.nunciation is however still sometimes heard in words of correct English, as in _sure_.

There are some consonants of the Irish language which when they come together do not coalesce in sound, as they would in an English word, so that when they are uttered a very short obscure vowel sound is heard between them: and a native Irish speaker cannot avoid this. By a sort of hereditary custom this peculiarity finds its way into our p.r.o.nunciation of English. Thus _firm_ is sounded in Ireland _ferrum_--two distinct syllables: 'that bird is looking for a _wurrum_.' _Form_ (a seat) we call a _furrum_.

'His sire he'd seek no more nor descend to Mammon's sh.o.r.e, Nor venture on the tyrant's dire _alaa-rums_, But daily place his care on that emblematic fair, Till he'd barter coronations for her _chaa-rums_.'

(Old Folk Song.)[2]

_Herb_ is sounded _errub_: and we make two syllables of the name Charles [Char-less]. At the time of the Bulgarian ma.s.sacres, I knew a Dublin doctor, a Tipperary man, who felt very strongly on the subject and was constantly talking about the poor _Bullugarians_.

In the County Monaghan and indeed elsewhere {97} in Ireland, _us_ is sounded _huz_, which might seem a c.o.c.kney vulgarism, but I think it is not.

In Roscommon and in the Munster counties a thong is called a _fong_.

_Chaw_ for _chew_, _oncet_ [wonst] for _once_, _twiced_ for _twice_, and _heighth_, _sighth_, for _height_, _sight_, which are common in Ireland, are all old English survivals. Thus in the 'Faerie Queene' (Bk. I., Canto IV., x.x.x.):--

'And next to him malicious Envy rode Upon a ravenous wolfe and still did _chaw_ Between his cankred teeth a venomous tode.'

_Chaw_ is also much used in America. '_Onst_ for once, is in the Chester Plays' (Lowell); and _highth_ for _height_ is found all through 'Paradise Lost.' So also we have _drooth_ for _drought_:--

'Like other historians I'll stick to the truth While I sing of the monarch who died of the _drooth_.'

(SAM LOVER.)

_Joist_ is sounded _joice_ in Limerick; and _catch_ is everywhere p.r.o.nounced _ketch_.

The word _hither_ is p.r.o.nounced in Ireland _hether_, which is the correct old English usage, but long since abandoned in England. Thus in a State Paper of 1598, we read that two captains returned _hether_: and in Spenser's 'View,' he mentions a 'colony [sent] _hether_ out of Spaine.'

'An errant knight or any other wight That _hether_ turns his steps.' ('Faerie Queene.')

Hence we have coined the word _comether_, for _come-hether_, to denote a sort of spell brought about {98} by coaxing, wheedling, making love, &c.--as in the phrase 'she put her _comether_ on him, so that he married her up at once.' 'There'll not be six girls in the fair he'll not be putting the _comether_ on.' (Seumas MacMa.n.u.s.)

The family name 'Bermingham' is always made _Brimmigem_ in Ireland, which is a very old English corruption. In Friar Clyn's Annals (Latin) written in the fourteenth century, the death is recorded in 1329 of Johannes de _Brimegham_, i.e., the celebrated Sir John Bermingham who defeated Edward Bruce at Faughart.

Leap is p.r.o.nounced _lep_ by our people; and in racing circles it is still so p.r.o.nounced by all cla.s.ses. The little village of Leap in the County Cork is always called _Lep_.

There is a curious tendency among us to reverse the sounds of certain letters, as for instance _sh_ and _ch_. 'When you're coming home to-morrow bring the spade and _chovel_, and a pound of b.u.t.ter fresh from the _shurn_.' 'That _shimney_ doesn't draw the smoke well.' So with the letters _u_ and _i_. 'When I was crossing the _brudge_ I dropped the sweeping _brish_ into the _ruvver_.' 'I never saw _sich_ a sight.' But such words are used only by the very uneducated. _Brudge_ for _bridge_ and the like are however of old English origin. 'Margaret, mother of Henry VII, writes _seche_ for _such_' (Lowell). So in Ireland:--'_Jestice_ is all I ax,' says Mosy in the story ('Ir. Pen. Mag.); and _churries_ for _cherries_ ('Knocknagow'). This tendency corresponds with the vulgar use of _h_ in London and elsewhere in England. 'The 'en has just laid a _hegg_': 'he was singing My 'art's in the {99} 'ighlands or The Brave Old _Hoak_.'

(Washington Irving.)

_Squeeze_ is p.r.o.nounced _squeedge_ and _crush_ _scroodge_ in Donegal and elsewhere; but corruptions like these are found among the English peasantry--as may be seen in d.i.c.kens.

'You had better _rinsh_ that gla.s.s' is heard everywhere in Ireland: an old English survival; for Shakespeare and Lovelace have _renched_ for _rinced_ (Lowell): which with the Irish sound of short _e_ before _n_ gives us our word _rinshed_.

Such words as _old_, _cold_, _hold_ are p.r.o.nounced by the Irish people _ould_, _cowld_, _hould_ (or _howlt_); _gold_ is sounded _goold_ and _ford_ _foord_. I once heard an old Wicklow woman say of some very rich people 'why these people could _ait goold_.' These are all survivals of the old English way of p.r.o.nouncing such words. In the State Papers of Elizabeth's time you will constantly meet with such words as _hoult_ and _stronghowlt_ (hold and stronghold.) In my boyhood days I knew a great large sinewy active woman who lived up in the mountain gap, and who was universally known as 'Thunder the _cowlt_ from Poulaflaikeen' (_cowlt_ for _colt_); Poulaflaikeen, the high pa.s.s between Glenosheen and Glenanaar, Co.

Limerick, for which see Dr. R. D. Joyce's 'Ballads of Irish Chivalry,' pp.

102, 103, 120.

Old Tom Howlett, a Dublin job gardener, speaking to me of the management of fruit trees, recommended the use of butchers' waste. 'Ah sir'--said he, with a luscious roll in his voice as if he had been licking his lips--'Ah sir, there's nothing for the roots of an apple tree like a big tub of fine rotten _ould_ guts,' {100}