English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 12

Final _d_ is often omitted after _l_ and _n_: you will see this everywhere in Seumas MacMa.n.u.s's books for Donegal. Recently we were told by the attendant boy at one of the Dublin seaside baths that the prices were--'a shilling for the hot and sixpence for the _cowl_.' So we constantly use _an'_ for _and_: in a Waterford folk song we have 'Here's to the swan that sails on the _pon_' (the 'swan' being the poet's sweetheart): and I once heard a man say to another in a fair:--'That horse is sound in win' and limb.'

Short _e_ is always sounded before _n_ and _m_, and sometimes in other positions, like short _i_: 'How many arrived?' '_Tin min_ and five women': 'He always smoked a pipe with a long _stim_.' If you ask a person for a pin, he will inquire 'Is it a bra.s.s pin or a writing _pin_ you want?'

_Again_ is sounded by the Irish people _agin_, which is an old English survival. 'Donne rhymes _again_ with _sin_, and Quarles repeatedly with _in_.' (Lowell.) An Irishman was once landed on the coast of some unknown country where they spoke English. Some violent political dispute happened to be going on there at the time, and the people eagerly asked the stranger about his political views; on which--instinctively giving expression to the feelings he brought with him from the 'ould sod'--he promptly replied before making any inquiry--'I'm agin the Government.' This story, which is pretty well known, is a faked one; but it affords us a good ill.u.s.tration.

_Onion_ is among our people always p.r.o.nounced _ingion_: constantly heard in Dublin. 'Go out Mike {101} for the _ingions_,' as I once heard a woman say in Limerick.

'Men are of different opinions, Some like leeks and some like _ingions_.'

This is old English; 'in one of Dodsley's plays we have _onions_ rhyming with _minions_' (Lowell.)

The general _English_ tendency is to put back the accent as far from the end of the word as possible. But among our people there is a contrary tendency--to throw forward the accent; as in _ex-cel'lent_, his _Ex-cel'-lency_--Nas-sau' Street (Dublin), Ar-bu'-tus, commit-tee', her-e-dit'tary.

'Tele-mach'us though so grand ere the sceptre reached his hand.'

(Old Irish Folk Song.)

In Gough's Arithmetic there was a short section on the laws of radiation and of pendulums. When I was a boy I once heard one of the old schoolmasters reading out, in his grandiloquent way, for the people grouped round Ardpatrick chapel gate after Ma.s.s, his formidable prospectus of the subjects he could teach, among which were 'the _raddiation_ of light and heat and the vibrations of swinging _pen-joo'lums_.' The same fine old scholarly pedant once remarked that our neighbourhood was a very _moun-taan'-yus_ locality. A little later on in my life, when I had written some pieces in high-flown English--as young writers will often do--one of these schoolmasters--a much lower cla.s.s of man than the last--said to me by way of compliment: 'Ah! Mr. Joyce, you have a fine _voca-bull'ery_.'

_Mischievous_ is in the south accented on the second syllable--_Mis-chee'-vous_: but I have come across this {102} in Spenser's Faerie Queene. We accent _character_ on the second syllable:--

'Said he in a whisper to my benefactor, Though good your _charac'ter_ has been of that lad.'

(Song by Mr. Patrick Murray of Kilfinane, a schoolmaster of great ability: about 1840).

One of my school companions once wrote an ode in praise of Algebra, of which unfortunately I remember only the opening line: but this fragment shows how we p.r.o.nounced the word in our old schools in the days of yore:--

'Hail sweet _al-jib'era_, you're my heart's delight.'

There is an Irish ballad about the people of Tipperary that I cannot lay my hands on, which speaks of the

'Tipperary boys, Although we are cross and _contrairy_ boys';

and this word 'contrairy' is universal in Munster.

In Tipperary the vowel _i_ is generally sounded _oi_. Mick Hogan a Tipperary boy--he was a man indeed--was a pupil in Mr. Condon's school in Mitchelstown, with the full rich typical accent. One morning as he walked in, a fellow pupil, Tom Burke--a big fellow too--with face down on desk over a book, said, without lifting his head--to make fun of him--'_foine_ day, Mick.' 'Yes,' said Mick as he walked past, at the same time laying his hand on Tom's poll and punching his nose down hard against the desk. Tom let Mick alone after that 'foine day.' Farther south, and in many places all over Ireland, they do the reverse:--'The kettle is _biling_';

'She smiled on me like the morning sky, And she won the heart of the prentice _bye_.'

(Old Irish Folk Song.)

{103}

The old English p.r.o.nunciation of _oblige_ was _obleege_:--

'Dreaded by fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.'

(POPE.)

Among the old-fashioned and better-educated of our peasantry you will still hear this old p.r.o.nunciation preserved:--I am very much obleeged to you. It is now generally heard in Kildare among all cla.s.ses. A similar tendency is in the sound of _whine_, which in Munster is always made _wheen_: 'What's that poor child _wheening_ for?' also everywhere heard:--'All danger [of the fever] is now past: he is over his _creesis_.'

Metathesis, or the changing of the place of a letter or syllable in a word, is very common among the Irish people, as _cruds_ for _curds_, _girn_ for _grin_, _purty_ for _pretty_. I heard a man quoting from Shakespeare about Puck--from hearsay: he said he must have been a wonderful fellow, for he could put a _griddle_ round about the earth in forty minutes.' I knew a fellow that could never say _traveller_: it was always _throlliver_.

There is a tendency here as elsewhere to shorten many words: You will hear _garner_ for _gardener_, _ornary_ for _ordinary_. The late Cardinal Cullen was always spoken of by a friend of mine who revered him, as _The Carnal_.

_My_ and _by_ are p.r.o.nounced _me_ and _be_ all over Ireland: Now _me_ boy I expect you home _be_ six o'clock.

The obscure sound of _e_ and _i_ heard in _her_ and _fir_ is hardly known in Ireland, at least among the general run of people. _Her_ is made either _herr_ or _hur_. They sound _sir_ either _surr_ (to rhyme with cur), {104} or _serr_; but in this latter case they always give the _r_ or _rr_ what is called the slender sound in Irish, which there is no means of indicating by English letters. _Fir_ is also sounded either _fur_ or _ferr_ (a _fur_ tree or a _ferr_ tree). _Furze_ is p.r.o.nounced rightly; but they take it to be a plural, and so you will often hear the people say _a fur bush_ instead of _a furze bush_.

In other cla.s.ses of words _i_ before _r_ is misp.r.o.nounced. A young fellow, Johnny Brien, objected to go by night on a message that would oblige him to pa.s.s by an empty old house that had the reputation of being haunted, because, as he said, he was afeard of the _sperrit_.

In like manner, _miracle_ is p.r.o.nounced _merricle_. Jack Finn--a little busybody noted for perpetually jibing at sacred things--Jack one day, with innocence in his face, says to Father Tom, 'Wisha I'd be terrible thankful entirely to your reverence to tell me what a merricle is, for I could never understand it.' 'Oh yes Jack,' says the big priest good-naturedly, as he stood ready equipped for a long ride to a sick call--poor old Widow Dwan up in the mountain gap: 'Just tell me exactly how many cows are grazing in that field there behind you.' Jack, chuckling at the fun that was coming on, turned round to count, on which Father Tom dealt him a hearty kick that sent him sprawling about three yards. He gathered himself up as best he could; but before he had time to open his mouth the priest asked, 'Did you feel that Jack?' 'Oh Blood-an ... Yerra of course I did your reverence, why the blazes wouldn't I!' 'Well Jack,' replied Father Tom, benignly, 'If you didn't feel it--_that_ would be a _merricle_.' {105}

CHAPTER VIII.

PROVERBS.

The Irish delighted in sententious maxims and apt ill.u.s.trations compressed into the fewest possible words. Many of their proverbs were evolved in the Irish language, of which a collection with translations by John O'Donovan may be seen in the 'Dublin Penny Journal,' I. 258; another in the Rev.

Ulick Bourke's Irish Grammar; and still another in the Ulster Journ. of Archaeology (old series) by Mr. Robert MacAdam, the Editor. The same tendency continued when the people adopted the English language. Those that I give here in collected form were taken from the living lips of the people during the last thirty or forty years.

'Be first in a wood and last in a bog.' If two persons are making their way, one behind the other, through a wood, the hinder man gets slashed in the face by the springy boughs pushed aside by the first: if through a bog, the man behind can always avoid the dangerous holes by seeing the first sink into them. This proverb preserves the memory of a time when there were more woods and bogs than there are now: it is translated from Irish.

In some cases a small amount added on or taken off makes a great difference in the result: 'An inch is a great deal in a man's nose.' In the Crimean war an officer happened to be walking past an Irish soldier on duty, who raised hand to cap to salute. {106} But the hand was only half way when a stray bullet whizzed by and knocked off the cap without doing any injury.

Whereupon Paddy, perfectly unmoved, stooped down, replaced the cap and completed the salute. The officer, admiring his coolness, said 'That was a narrow shave my man!' 'Yes your honour: an inch is as good as a mile.' This is one of our commonest sayings.

A person is reproved for some trifling harmless liberty, and replies:--'Oh a cat can look at a king.' (A translation from Irish.)

A person who fails to get what he was striving after is often glad to accept something very inferior: 'When all fruit fails welcome haws.'

When a person shows no sign of grat.i.tude for a good turn as if it pa.s.sed completely from his memory, people say 'Eaten bread is soon forgotten.'

A person is sent upon some dangerous mission, as when the persons he is going to are his deadly enemies:--that is 'Sending the goose on a message to the fox's den.'

If a dishonest avaricious man is put in a position of authority over people from whom he has the power to extort money; that is 'putting the fox to mind the geese.'

'You have as many kinds of potatoes on the table as if you took them from a beggarman's bag': referring to the good old time when beggarmen went about and usually got a _lyre_ of potatoes in each house.

'No one can tell what he is able to do till he tries,' as the duck said when she swallowed a dead kitten. {107}

You say to a man who is suffering under some continued hardship:--'This distress is only temporary: have patience and things will come round soon again.' 'O yes indeed; _Live horse till you get gra.s.s_.'

A person in your employment is not giving satisfaction; and yet you are loth to part with him for another: 'Better is the devil you know than the devil you don't know.'

'Least said, soonest mended.'