Sunday, November 11, 2007
Irish origins of US slang…
Fascinating piece from the New York Times which traces some noteable US slang words back to origins within the Irish language... Thanks to Frank and Rory for the multiple prompts…
Mick Fealty @ 05:47 PM
I don’t doubt for a moment that we’re responsible for a lot of slang that’s floating about these days, but I do feel a lot of the examples in the article (and book *cough*) are a stretch. Matching a word to a similar sounding Irish equivalent is a leap of faith and a lazy attempt at constructing an etymology.
A slight deviation, but I’m continually surprised how florid our wee North Irish dialect is compared to the rest of the English-speaking world; based heavily on metaphor, tone and insinuation. The reason we’re hard to understand abroad isn’t entirely the accent or Irish/Scots gaelic words and structure, but that we unknowingly speak in guttural poetry.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 06:52 PMGlam can be found in Scotland and Ireland. According to the Scottish DSL it found its way into Scots from Gaelic. According to Alex Blair, it can be found in the records of the Presbyterian churches in and around Ballymoney - under sin.
Here’s one I lifted from the Scottish DSL:
“*Tyr. 1929 “M. Mulcaghey” Rhymes 29: I might give her a glam on the road to Portrush.”
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 06:59 PMDerrymen call their mates “muckers”. I’ve always felt that that must come from “Mo cara”, my friend.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 07:23 PMNice link, and much of what this Cassidy is saying is probably kosher.
However, he can forget “buddy"/bodach for a start. That’s from Scots “body”, as in Burns:
Gin a body meet a body
Coming thro’ the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body -
Need a body cry?
It had crossed the Atlantic before 1840 (and therefore likely via the Scots-Irish). See the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue and the Dictionary of American Regional English.I’m up for this thread, if only because I’m armed with Michael Montgomery’s From Ulster to America: the Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English.
My favourite therefrom is that craic, so beloved of the Oirish heritage industry, is English as early as the 15th century, and can be traced from Ulster dialect long before it appears in the Irish spelling in the 20th century.
This reminds me of James Joyce in Portrait of the Artist. When Stephen Dedalus is accosted by the dean of studies ("the English convert”, supposed to be based on Gerard Manley Hopkins):
-- That? said Stephen. Is that called a funnel? Is it not a tundish?
-- What is a tundish?
-- That. The funnel.
-- Is that called a tundish in Ireland? asked the dean. I never heard the word in my life.
-- It is called a tundish in Lower Drumcondra, said Stephen, laughing, where they speak the best English.
-- A tundish, said the dean reflectively. That is a most interesting word. I must look that word up. Upon my word I must.
Later Stephen finds his pride in Irish vocabulary challenged:
April 13. That tundish has been on my mind for a long time. I looked it up and find it English and good old blunt English too. Damn the dean of studies and his funnel! What did he come here for to teach us his own language or to learn it from us. Damn him one way or the other!
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 07:28 PMIt’s twndish Malcolm mun ! And it’s about as Welsh as you can get!
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 07:48 PMOff topic, sorry. That ad to the right about what MPs read; what are DODS?
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 07:50 PMjoeCanuck @ 07:50 PM:
Dod’s Parliamentary Companion, a listing of Standing Orders, officials, ministers, MOPs, Lords and similar low-lifes. I (self-inflation alert!) see my avatar twice got in as a defeated candidate.
I think it may now come in three versions: a small pocket-sized job, a shelf-bender, and on-line.
In times gone by, before etiquette was loosened, it was essential baggage for determining whether to address a Member as a “noble” (scion of the peerage), a “learned” (lawyer), a “gallant” (ex-officer), an “honourable” (bog-standard MP) or a “right honourable” (Privy Councillor)
pratMember or any combination thereof.There are other (perhaps better, and certainly cheaper) sources: The Times Guide to the House of Commons is best known. For the real dirt, though, rely on the Internet (start with http://www.theyworkforyou.com ).
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 08:14 PM>>Gin a body meet a body
Coming thro’ the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body -
Need a body cry?<<Sorry Malcolm but you are wrong there!
‘A body’ is Scots for the English anybody in this instance. Ayrshire Scots is pretty undecipherable, even to us 15 miles up the road.
The simplicity of this article is astonishing in that it seems so obvious. Why has no-one picked up on this before.
Alright Dewi!
Back hame safe then!, was up at Fort William the other day. Glencoe is all they make it out to be, and ben Nevis was simply majestic in the autumnal sunlight.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 08:18 PMThanks, Malcolm.
It was driving me crazy. Wondered if it was dull/dying/dead old dailies.Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 08:22 PMMalcolm, is crack just Scots or Northern English in the following sense of the word:
“3. (1) intr. To chat, gossip, have a talk. Gen.Sc. Vbl.n. crackin.
*Sc. 1728 Ramsay Poems II. 224:
Gae warm ye, and crack with our Dame, Till I set aff the Mill.” ..DSL“Gie us a bit o yer crack” perplexes Americans!!
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 08:23 PMYes, Nevin. I’ve come back from vacation and told people the crack was good and they’ve looked at me flabbergasted.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 08:38 PMWonderful in North Walian Welsh they say “Ffiseg” for medicine - ain’t that old like “Physick” from greek ?
In the south we say “Moddion” cos we are modern like !
PE - Got a pass to look after Dad......
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 09:09 PMNevin @ 08:23 PM:
Yes, I see where you’re coming from.
My OED has it as “loud talk, boast, brag ... arch or dial. (That’s definition 4, just after “breaking of wind"). The OED cites this as ”c. 1450 HARDING Map of Scotl. National MSS Scotl.” That’s telling. The next citation is 1523, Henry VIII’s State Papers: Notwythstoodynge the Frenchemennys crakes.
From there it’s a simple stretch to your:
“5: brisk talk, conversation ... Sc. and north dial. And, yes, the citations start with Ramsay’s “Gentle Shepherd” (1725), followed by Tannahill Poems (c. 1810) followed by (and I note this) Thoreau in “Cape Cod”, 1865.That seems a fairly clear line of descent.
In passing, I see the OED thinks “bud” and “buddy” are childish or negro pron. of “brother”, and give a citation from “Polly Peaseblossom’s Wedding” of 1851. Montgomery (my earlier posting) has it from 1840 in a New York farce.
And, no, I’m quite happy with my reading of Burns, thank you.
Despite Prince Eoghan @ 08:18 PM‘s neat put-down, this is a topic of some passing interest. I reckon there are several distinct threads to US slang, for instances:
The immigrant communities (starting with the Scots-Irish, then the Germans and Scandinavians, then the Irish, then the ...) each contributed. My experience suggests this is regional: Yiddish contributes a lot to New Yorkese: Hibernicised English more so in Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia.
There has to be some input from the hybrid “cant”, the admixtures of everything in the parallel culture of the “low” and semi-criminal classes.
We’re still evaluating the contribution from Black culture.
That said, the Irish-speaking (and Hibernicised English) contribution really hits in only after 1830. Montgomery makes a double point:
“… nineteenth-century emigrants apparently made little contribution to Americn speech in those northern parts of the new nation, most likely because emigrants from Ireland were a relatively late-arriving group to areas where English had already been spoken ... the component from Ulster often penetrated into the American hinterland, in contrast to that from elsewhere in Ireland, and sometimes played a part in distinguishing American regional and social dialects. Colonial-era emigrants from Ireland to America were by and large from Ulster (mainly Presbyterians of Scottish heritage) and went to interior areas where their numbers made them a strong and often the dominant group. They routinely mixed with people of English, German, African or other extraction who borrowed from their speech.”Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 09:16 PMNevin asks MR
Malcolm, is crack just Scots or Northern English in the following sense of the word:
páid interjects..
almost certainly.
Most Irish speakers I know treat Cassidy’s assertions as fanciful and stretched beyond credence.
If you are looking for an all-powerful, subtle and juggernaut language from around these shores, look no further than An Béarla.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 09:22 PMMalcolm - will you stop being so clever mun ! It’s entirely obvious that US slang is derived from Welsh.
Everybody says “Cwtsh” dont they ?Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 09:35 PMDewi @ 09:35 PM:
Stop bwgging me, mon!
Now “bug” is a great derivation. Without looking it up (which is dangerous with all the intellects round here) it goes all the way from those Welsh drovers, complaining about the flies as they brought the autumn cattle to London, via microscopes, via Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (look her up!) to Springfield’s famous child. In effect it makes a full circle.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 09:44 PMUtter garbage. See this and stop believing everything you read in the papers.
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 09:52 PMhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbric_language
Nôs Da
I reckon Cumbrian shepherds have been speaking Welsh all alomg......
Posted by on Nov 11, 2007 @ 09:54 PMNot Impressed,
We do not, as you suggest, believe everything we read in the newspapers but we do so like to have a bit of a gab around the more interesting and, especially, contentious pieces.
While Grant Barrett’s scorn might well be appropriate to The Lexicographer’s Rules, here, I’m afraid he serves as little more than a spoilsport.
Posted by on Nov 12, 2007 @ 12:28 AMA bigger pile of twaddle I never did read.
Basically he picks up any American-English slang, finds some word in Irish that nearly somehow sounds the same and then says that all the words are derived from Irish.
Two points follow from this, why don’t the Irish themselves use these words? And did the Scots, English, Germans, Jews (I guessing at least half a dozen of the cited examples are Yiddish in origin), Swedes, Italians and most importantly Africans have no role in creating these words?
“Geezer” derived from “gaosmhar” meaning wise man? Jesus, s’obvious innit? I mean when we say geezer we immediately mean wise man don’t we?
Many English slang words are derived from India, and are connected with military service there, I suspect the Derry man’s “mucker” comes from the army where your mucker was the man you “mucked in” with.
As for “craic”, I have said before the originator of this abomination should be taken out and shot forthwith. When I grew up in Derry “crack” meaning good fun was exclusively a northern word and was connected with the English expressions, “crack a joke”, “wisecrack”, “get cracking” etc. some time around the mid 1980’s some people down south decided it was an ancient Gaelic expression and with the global proliferation of plastic Paddy bars the dreadful word “craic” was released upon an unsuspecting world.
Posted by on Nov 12, 2007 @ 02:57 AMHarry, I grew up using the word crack myself in Wexford in the 70s, so I’m not sure it was ever just a Northern word. I presume it comes from Northern England though and the first time I saw the appalling transliteration into craic was during the 80s. About the same time as they stopped using Rialtas for Government and started using Gubharmaint.
Posted by on Nov 12, 2007 @ 03:40 AMAlthough I was one among others who provided the heads up on this item Harry Flashman’s erudite critique of Daniel Cassidy’s book, which he has clearly studied in great depth, has convinced me that Cassidy has got it wrong.
In a devestating display of his knowledge of the social forces at work, Flashman, in his third paragraph demonstrates conclusively that the Irish in America could not possibly have influenced any new slang words as the Irish in the USA were much too timid and shy to speak to their superiors in the rest of the community and that this condition prevailed until after the election of John F Kennedy as president.
Indeed Kennedy himself was never known to utter a word in public, other than among his family and Irish friends, until he took the presedential oath of office. Afterwards, of course, you couldn’t shut him up and they had to shoot him.
Since then many Irish in the US have become quite famous and witty in communication both oral (Eddie Murphy) and written (Studs Lonigan), but before that time they had to make a living in the entertainment field as dancers and had quite some success in this field with such world renowned dancers as Jimmy Cagney, Dan Dailey, Donald O’Connor, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Debbie Reynolds and of course, Fred O’Stair.
Posted by on Nov 12, 2007 @ 07:29 AMRory, it stands to reason that a huge influx of native Irish speakers are going to influence the language of America… every ethnic group in America has done so.
In fact, what surprises me is that Cassidy has only identified the etymology of a few hundred words.
Posted by on Nov 12, 2007 @ 07:45 AMProbably a more interesting project is how many words in the English language have their derivation in Irish. Since a random check of any dictionary will tell you that so-called ‘English’ words are actually Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, etc.
Slang, by its nature, is almost impossible to trace etymological terms.
Posted by on Nov 12, 2007 @ 07:52 AMHarry, craic is just a (relatively recent) borrowing into Irish - and then into English; they dropped the surplus k and inserted an i. (cf páirc, páirt)
Posted by on Nov 12, 2007 @ 07:59 AM
