Hiberno-English: Encyclopedia II - Hiberno-English - Turns of phrase

Hiberno-English - Turns of phrase

Amn't is used as an abbreviation of "am not", by analogy with "isn't" and "aren't". This can be used as a tag question ("I'm making a mistake, amn't I?"), or as an alternative to "I'm not" ("I amn't joking"), and the double negative is also used ("I'm not late, amn't I not?").

Arra is used also. Arra tends to be used after something bad has happened, when someone is looking on the bright side ("Arra, we'll go next week", "Arra, 'tis not the end of the world").

Come here to me now or Come here and I'll tell ya something is used to mean "Listen to this" or "I have something to tell you" and can be used as "Come here and tell me". The phrase "Tell me this", short for "Tell me this and tell me no more", is also common. These phrases tend to imply a secretiveness or revelatory importance to the upcoming bit of information.

The devil is used in Irish as an expletive, eg. Cén áit sa diabhal a bhfuil sé? "Where the devil is he?" (the Irish version is literally "What place in the devil is he?"). This has been translated into Irish as a mild expletive, used in the song "Whiskey in the Jar" in the line "But the devil take the women, for they never can be easy". Diabhal is also used for negation in Irish, and this usage might be carried over to Hiberno-English: diabhal fear "devil a man", for "not a soul".

Various insults have been transferred directly from Irish and have a very mild meaning in English: e.g. Lúdramán, Amadán, pleidhce, rogue, eejit (idiot), all (loosely) meaning "fool" or "messer" (messer is also a Hiberno-Irish turn of phrase). "Langer" is a variant used especially in Cork.

Also more prevelant in Cork is a profligation of colourful emphasis-words; in general any turn of phrase associated with a superlative action is used to mean very, and are often calculated to express these in a negative light and therefore often unpleasant by implication - "he's a howling/ thundering/ rampaging/ galloping/ screeching langer, so he is." The practice is widespread in the rest of Hiberno-English but such a feature of Corkonian speech that it is now commonly lampooned when imitating the accent.

Reduplication is not an especially common feature of Irish; nevertheless in rendering Irish phrases into English it is occasionally used:

• ar bith corresponds to English at all, so the stronger ar chor ar bith gives rise to the form at all at all
  • I've no money at all at all.
• ar eagla go... (lit. on fear that) means in case .... The variant ar eagla na heagla, (lit on fear of fear) implies the circumstances are more unlikely. The corresponding Hiberno-English phrases are to be sure and to be sure to be sure. In this context, these are not, as might be thought, disjuncts meaning 'certainly'; they could better be translated in case and just in case. Nowadays normally spoken with conscious levity.
  • I brought some cash in case I saw a bargain, and my credit card 'to be sure to be sure'.

So is often used for emphasis ("I can speak Irish, so I can"), or it may be tacked on to the end of a sentence to indicate agreement ("Bye so", "Let's go so", "That's fine so", "We'll do that so"). The word is also used to contradict a negative statement ("You're not pushing hard enough" - "I am so!").

Sure is often used as a tag word, emphasising the obviousness of the statement. Can be used as "to be sure", the famous Irish stereotype phrase. Or "Sure, I can just go on Wednesday", "I will not, to be sure." "Sure Jayzus" is often used as a very mild expletive to express dismay.

Casual conversation in many parts of Ireland includes a variety of colourful turns of phrase. Some examples:

• Yer man (your man) and Yer wan (your one) are used in referring to an individual known by the party being addressed, but not being referred to by name. The phrases are an unusual sort of half-translation of a parallel Irish-language phrase, "mo dhuine" (literally 'my person'). The nearest equivalents in colloquial English usage would be "whatsisname" and "whatsername". Note also "wan" for female person may be a direct usage of the Irish 'bean' (woman). In Newfoundland the same form exists as 'buddy,' who is a generic nameless person. They use the word not always in the sense of 'my friend' but more in the sense of 'what's his name'. 'I went inside to ask for directions and buddy said to go left at the lights'.

• a soft day – referring to a rainy day with that particular soft drizzle, and an overcast sky, but yet relatively bright. This is a translation of the Irish "lá bog".

• Fecking is a mild abusive equivalent in force to "bleeding" or "darned." It is not a parallel of the English word "fucking", despite their similarity, and is generally less offensive. "Feck" is the corresponding expletive. The noun "fecker" is slightly stronger but not vulgar. These terms were lately introduced to Britain by Father Ted. In old Dubliner slang, "to feck' is also slang for "to steal", as in the phrase, "We went to the orchard and fecked some apples." It can also mean "to throw", especially if something is being thrown where it shouldn't, as in "We fecked his schoolbag into the river." Some areas of South Yorkshire use the word "fetch" to mean bring, "fetch me a glass of water, I'm gagged." throw " I fetched it up the tree and now its stuck" or arrive "We fetched up in Barnsley before 4 o'clock"

• Yoke is typically used in place of the word "thing", for instance "gimme that yoke there". It's also used as an insult: "you're some yoke".

• Now is often used at the end of sentences or phrases as a semantically empty word, completing an utterance without contributing any apparent meaning. Examples include "Bye now" (= "goodbye"), "There you go now" (= when giving someone something), "Ah now!" (= expressing dismay), "Hold on now" (= "wait a minute"), "Now then" as a mild attention-getter, etc. This usage is universal among English dialects, but occurs more frequently in Hiberno-English.

• To is often omitted from sentences where it would exist in British English. For example, "I am not allowed go out tonight", instead of "I am not allowed to go out tonight".

There are many terms for having consumed a drop too much drink, many are used elsewhere, but the Irish tendency is to attempt to find the most descriptive adjective yet on each occasion. Some examples: "scuttered", "stocious/stotious", "locked", "langered", "mouldy" (pron. mowldy as in "fowl"), "polluted", "flootered", "plastered", "bolloxed", "well out of it", "wankered", "fucked", "fuckered", "binned", "gee-eyed", "buckled", "steaming", "messy", "sloppy", "wasted", "paralytic", "full as a boot", "legless", "hammered" , "blootered", "squooshed", "banjoed", "bingoed" . (Phrases in italics are more "colourful")

Some turns of phrase are more localised and their meaning may not be widespread throughout the country, while others are more transient and fall out of use after a number of years.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Turns of phrase", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki