English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 3

'It wouldn't be wishing you a pound note to do so and so': i.e. 'it would be as bad as the loss of a pound,' or 'it might cost you a pound.' Often used as a sort of threat to deter a person from doing it.

'Where do you keep all your money?' 'Oh, indeed, _it's not much I have_': merely translated from the Gaelic, _Ni moran ata agum_.

To a silly foolish fellow:--'There's a great deal of sense outside your head.'

'The only sure way to conceal evil is not to do it.'

'I don't think very much of these horses,' meaning 'I have a low opinion of them.'

'I didn't pretend to understand what he said,' appears a negative statement; but it is really one of our ways of making a positive one:--'I pretended not to understand him.' To the same cla.s.s belongs the common expression 'I don't think':--'I don't think you bought that horse too dear,' meaning 'I think you did not buy him too dear'; 'I don't think this day will be wet,' equivalent to 'I think it will not be wet.' {21}

Lowry Looby is telling how a lot of fellows attacked Hardress Cregan, who defends himself successfully:--'Ah, it isn't a goose or a duck they had to do with when they came across Mr. Cregan.' (Gerald Griffin.) Another way of expressing the same idea often heard:--'He's no sop (wisp) in the road'; i.e. 'he's a strong brave fellow.'

'It was not too wise of you to buy those cows as the market stands at present,' i.e. it was rather foolish.

'I wouldn't be sorry to get a gla.s.s of wine, meaning, 'I would be glad.'

An unpopular person is going away:--

'Joy be with him and a bottle of moss, And if he don't return he's no great loss.'

'How are you to-day, James?'

'Indeed I can't say that I'm very well': meaning 'I am rather ill.'

'You had no right to take that book without my leave'; meaning 'You were wrong in taking it--it was wrong of you to take it.' A translation of the Irish _ni coir duit_. 'A bad right' is stronger than 'no right.' 'You have no right to speak ill of my uncle' is simply negation:--'You are wrong, for you have no reason or occasion to speak so.' 'A bad right you have to speak ill of my uncle:' that is to say, 'You are doubly wrong' [for he once did you a great service]. 'A bad right anyone would have to call Ned a screw'

[for he is well known for his generosity]. ('Knocknagow.') Another way of applying the word--in the sense of _duty_--is seen in the following:--A member at an Urban Council {22} meeting makes an offensive remark and refuses to withdraw it: when another retorts:--'You have a right to withdraw it'--i.e. 'it is your duty.' So:--'You have a right to pay your debts.'

'Is your present farm as large as the one you left?' Reply:--'Well indeed it doesn't want much of it.' A common expression, and borrowed from the Irish, where it is still more usual. The Irish _beagnach_ ('little but') and _acht ma beag_ ('but only a little') are both used in the above sense ('doesn't want much'), equivalent to the English _almost_.

A person is asked did he ever see a ghost. If his reply is to be negative, the invariable way of expressing it is: 'I never saw anything worse than myself, thanks be to G.o.d.'

A person is grumbling without cause, making out that he is struggling in some difficulty--such as poverty--and the people will say to him ironically: 'Oh how bad you are.' A universal Irish phrase among high and low.

A person gives a really good present to a girl:--'He didn't affront her by that present.' (Patterson: Antrim and Down.)

How we cling to this form of expression--or rather how it clings to us--is seen in the following extract from the Dublin correspondence of one of the London newspapers of December, 1909:--'Mr. ---- is not expected to be returned to parliament at the general election'; meaning it _is_ expected that he will _not_ be returned. So also:--'How is poor Jack Fox to-day?'

'Oh he's not expected'; i.e. not expected to live,--he is _given over_.

This expression, _not expected_, is a very common Irish phrase in cases of death sickness. {23}

CHAPTER IV.

IDIOMS DERIVED FROM THE IRISH LANGUAGE.

In this chapter I am obliged to quote the original Irish pa.s.sages a good deal as a guarantee of authenticity for the satisfaction of Irish scholars: but for those who have no Irish the translations will answer equally well.

Besides the examples I have brought together here, many others will be found all through the book. I have already remarked that the great majority of our idiomatic Hibernian-English sayings are derived from the Irish language.

When existence or modes of existence are predicated in Irish by the verb _ta_ or _ata_ (English _is_), the Irish preposition _in_ (English _in_) in some of its forms is always used, often with a possessive p.r.o.noun, which gives rise to a very curious idiom. Thus, 'he is a mason' is in Irish _ta se 'n a shaor_, which is literally _he is in his mason_: 'I am standing' is _ta me a m' sheasamh_, lit. _I am in my standing_. This explains the common Anglo-Irish form of expression:--'He fell on the road out of his standing': for as he is 'in his standing' (according to the Irish) when he is standing up, he is 'out of his standing' when he falls. This idiom with _in_ is constantly translated literally into English by the Irish people. Thus, instead of saying, 'I sent the wheat thrashed into corn to the mill, and it came home as flour,' they will rather say, 'I sent the wheat _in corn_ to the mill, and it came home _in flour_.' Here the _in_ denotes ident.i.ty: 'Your {24} hair is in a wisp'; i.e. it _is_ a wisp: 'My eye is in whey in my head,' i.e. it _is_ whey. (John Keegan in Ir. Pen. Journ.)

But an idiom closely resembling this, and in some respects identical with it, exists in English (though it has not been hitherto noticed--so far as I am aware)--as may be seen from the following examples:--'The Shannon ...

rushed through Athlone _in_ a deep and rapid stream (Macaulay), i.e. it _was_ a deep and rapid stream (like our expression 'Your handkerchief is in ribbons').

'Where heaves the turf _in_ many a mouldering heap.'

(GRAY'S 'Elegy.')

'Hence bards, like Proteus, long in vain tied down, Escape _in_ monsters and amaze the town.'

(POPE: 'Dunciad.')

'The bars forming the front and rear edges of each plane [of the flying-machine] are always _in_ one piece' (Daily Mail). Sh.e.l.ley's 'Cloud'

says, 'I laugh _in_ thunder' (meaning I laugh, and my laugh _is_ thunder.) 'The greensand and chalk were continued across the weald _in_ a great dome.' (Lord Avebury.)

'Just to the right of him were the white-robed bishops _in a group_.'

(Daily Mail.) 'And men _in_ nations' (Byron in 'The Isles of Greece'): 'The people came _in_ tens and twenties': 'the rain came down _in_ torrents': 'I'll take 10 _in_ gold and the rest _in_ silver': 'the snow gathered _in_ a heap.' 'The money came [home] sometimes _in_ specie and sometimes _in_ goods' (Lord Rothschild, speech in House of Lords, 29th November, 1909), exactly like 'the corn came home _in_ flour,' quoted above. The {25} preceding examples do not quite fully represent the Irish idiom in its entirety, inasmuch as the possessive p.r.o.nouns are absent. But even these are sometimes found, as in the familiar phrases, 'the people came _in their_ hundreds.' 'You are _in your_ thousands' [here at the meeting], which is an exact reproduction of the Gaelic phrase in the Irish cla.s.sical story:--_Ata sibh in bhur n-ealaibh_, 'Ye are swans' (lit. 'Ye are in your swans').

When mere existence is predicated, the Gaelic _ann_ (_in it_, i.e. 'in existence') is used, as _ata sneachta ann_, 'there is snow'; lit. 'there is snow _there_,' or 'there is snow _in it_,' i.e. in existence. The _ann_ should be left blank in English translation, i.e. having no proper representative. But our people will not let it go waste; they bring it into their English in the form of either _in it_ or _there_, both of which in this construction carry the meaning of _in existence_. Mrs. Donovan says to Bessy Morris:--'Is it yourself that's _in it_?' ('Knocknagow'), which would stand in correct Irish _An tusa ata ann_? On a Sunday one man insults and laughs at another, who says, 'Only for the day that's _in it_ I'd make you laugh at the wrong side of your mouth': 'the weather that's _in it_ is very hot.' 'There's nothing at all _there_ (in existence) as it used to be'

(Gerald Griffin: 'Collegians'): 'this day is bad for growth, there's a sharp east wind _there_.'

I do not find this use of the English preposition _in_--namely, to denote ident.i.ty--referred to in English dictionaries, though it ought to be.

The same mode of expressing existence by _an_ or _in_ is found in the Ulster and Scotch phrase for {26} _to be alone_, which is as follows, always bringing in the personal p.r.o.noun:--'I am in my lone,' 'he is in his lone,' 'they are in their lone'; or more commonly omitting the preposition (though it is always understood): 'She is living her lone.' All these expressions are merely translations from Gaelic, in which they are constantly used; 'I am in my lone' being from _Ta me am' aonar_, where _am'_ is 'in my' and _aonar_, 'lone.' _Am' aonar seal do bhiossa_, 'Once as I was alone.' (Old Irish Song.) In north-west Ulster they sometimes use the preposition _by_:--'To come home by his lone' (Seumas Mac Ma.n.u.s). Observe the word _lone_ is always made _lane_ in Scotland, and generally in Ulster; and these expressions or their like will be found everywhere in Burns or in any other Scotch (or Ulster) dialect writer.

Prepositions are used in Irish where it might be wrong to use them in corresponding constructions in English. Yet the Irish phrases are continually translated literally, which gives rise to many incorrect dialect expressions. Of this many examples will be found in what follows.

'He put lies _on_ me'; a form of expression often heard. This might have one or the other of two meanings, viz. either 'he accused me of telling lies,' or 'he told lies about me.'

'The tinker took fourpence _out of_ that kettle,' i.e. he earned 4d. by mending it. St. Patrick left his name _on_ the townland of Kilpatrick: that nickname remained _on_ Dan Ryan ever since.

'He was vexed _to_ me' (i.e. with me): 'I was _at him_ for half a year'

(with him); 'You could find no fault _to it_' (with it). All these are in use. {27}

'I took the medicine according to the doctor's order, but I found myself nothing the better _of it_.' 'You have a good time _of it_.' I find in d.i.c.kens however (in his own words) that the wind 'was obviously determined to make a night _of it_.' (See p. 10 for a peculiarly Irish use of _of it_.)

In the Irish poem _Bean na d-Tri m-Bo_, 'The Woman of Three Cows,' occurs the expression, _As do bholacht na bi teann_, 'Do not be haughty _out of_ your cattle.' This is a form of expression constantly heard in English:--'he is as proud as a peac.o.c.k _out of_ his rich relations.' So also, 'She has great thought _out of_ him,' i.e. She has a very good opinion of him. (Queen's Co.)

'I am without a penny,' i.e. I haven't a penny: very common: a translation from the equally common Irish expression, _ta me gan pinghin_.

In an Irish love song the young man tells us that he had been vainly trying to win over the colleen _le bliadhain agus le la_, which Petrie correctly (but not literally) translates 'for a year and for a day.' As the Irish preposition _le_ signifies _with_, the literal translation would be '_with_ a year and _with_ a day,' which would be incorrect English. Yet the uneducated people of the South and West often adopt this translation; so that you will hear such expressions as 'I lived in Cork _with_ three years.'

There is an idiomatic use of the Irish preposition _air_, 'on,' before a personal p.r.o.noun or before a personal name and after an active verb, to intimate injury or disadvantage of some kind, a violation of right or claim. Thus, _Do bhuail Seumas mo ghadhar orm_ [where _orm_ is _air me_], 'James struck my dog {28} _on me_,' where _on me_ means to my detriment, in violation of my right, &c. _Chaill se mo sgian orm_; 'he lost my knife _on me_.'

This mode of expression exists in the oldest Irish as well as in the colloquial languages--both Irish and English--of the present day. When St.

Patrick was spending the Lent on Croagh Patrick the demons came to torment him in the shape of great black hateful-looking birds: and the Tripart.i.te Life, composed (in the Irish language) in the tenth century, says, 'The mountain was filled with great sooty-black birds _on him_' (to his torment or detriment). In 'The Battle of Rossnaree,' Carbery, directing his men how to act against Conor, his enemy, tells them to send some of their heroes _re tuargain a sgeithe ar Conchobar_, 'to smite Conor's shield _on him_.'

The King of Ulster is in a certain hostel, and when his enemies hear of it, they say:--'We are pleased at that for we shall [attack and] take the hostel _on him_ to-night.' (Congal Claringneach.) It occurs also in the _Amra_ of Columkille--the oldest of all--though I cannot lay my hand on the pa.s.sage.