English As We Speak It in Ireland. P. W. Joyce

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СКАЧАТЬ (more usually agin you) means 'I opposed you and defeated your schemes.' This is merely a translation of an Irish phrase, in which the preposition le or re is used in the sense of against or in opposition to: do tháinic me leat annsin. (S. H. O'Grady.) 'His sore knee came against him during the walk.'

      Against is used by us in another sense—that of meeting: 'he went against his father,' i.e. he went to meet his father [who was coming home from town]. This, which is quite common, is, I think, pure Anglo-Irish. But 'he laid up a supply of turf against the winter' is correct English as well as Anglo-Irish.

      'And the cravat of hemp was surely spun

      Against the day when their race was run.'

      ('Touchstone' in 'Daily Mail.')

      A very common inquiry when you meet a friend is:—'How are all your care?' Meaning chiefly your family, those persons that are under your care. This is merely a translation of the common Irish inquiry, Cionnos tá do chúram go léir?

      A number of idiomatic expressions cluster round the word head, all of which are transplanted from Irish in the use of the Irish word ceann [cann] 'head'. Head is used to denote the cause, occasion, or motive of anything. 'Did he really walk that distance in a day?' Reply in Irish, Ní'l contabhairt air bith ann a cheann: 'there is no doubt at all on the head of it,' i.e. about it, in regard to it. 'He is a bad head to me,' i.e. he treats me badly. Merely the Irish is olc an ceann dom é. Bhi fearg air da chionn, he was vexed on the head of it.

      A dismissed clerk says:—'I made a mistake in one of the books, and I was sent away on the head of that mistake.'

      A very common phrase among us is, 'More's the pity':—'More's the pity that our friend William should be so afflicted.'

      'More's the pity one so pretty

      As I should live alone.'

      (Anglo-Irish Folk-Song.)

      This is a translation of a very common Irish expression as seen in:—Budh mhó an sgéile Diarmaid do bheith marbh: 'More's the pity Dermot to be dead.' (Story of 'Dermot and Grania.')

      'Who should come up to me in the fair but John.' Intended not for a question but for an assertion—an assertion of something which was hardly expected. This mode of expression, which is very common, is a Gaelic construction. Thus in the song Fáinne geal an lae:—Cia gheabhainn le m'ais acht cúilfhionn deas: 'Whom should I find near by me but the pretty fair haired girl.' 'Who should walk in only his dead wife.' (Gerald Griffin: 'Collegians.') 'As we were walking along what should happen but John to stumble and fall on the road.'

      The pronouns myself, himself, &c., are very often used in Ireland in a peculiar way, which will be understood from the following examples:—'The birds were singing for themselves.' 'I was looking about the fair for myself' (Gerald Griffin: 'Collegians'): 'he is pleasant in himself (ibid.): 'I felt dead [dull] in myself' (ibid.). 'Just at that moment I happened to be walking by myself' (i.e. alone: Irish, liom féin). Expressions of this kind are all borrowed direct from Irish.

      We have in our Irish-English a curious use of the personal pronouns which will be understood from the following examples:—'He interrupted me and I writing my letters' (as I was writing). 'I found Phil there too and he playing his fiddle for the company.' This, although very incorrect English, is a classic idiom in Irish, from which it has been imported as it stands into our English. Thus:—Do chonnairc me Tomás agus é n'a shuidhe cois na teine: 'I saw Thomas and he sitting beside the fire.' 'How could you see me there and I to be in bed at the time?' This latter part is merely a translation from the correct Irish:—agus meise do bheith mo luidhe ag an am sin (Irish Tale). Any number of examples of this usage might be culled from both English and Irish writings. Even so classical a writer as Wolfe follows this usage in 'The Burial of Sir John Moore':—

      'We thought …

      That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,

      And we far away on the billow.'

      (I am reminded of this by Miss Hayden and Prof. Hartog.)

      But there is a variety in our English use of the pronouns here, namely, that we often use the objective (or accusative) case instead of the nominative. 'How could you expect Davy to do the work and him so very sick?' 'My poor man fell into the fire a Sunday night and him hearty' (hearty, half drunk: Maxwell, 'Wild Sports of the West'). 'Is that what you lay out for me, mother, and me after turning the Voster' (i.e. after working through the whole of Voster's Arithmetic: Carleton). 'John and Bill were both reading and them eating their dinner' (while they were eating their dinner). This is also from the Irish language. We will first take the third person plural pronoun. The pronoun 'they' is in Irish siad: and the accusative 'them' is the Irish iad. But in some Irish constructions this iad is (correctly) used as a nominative; and in imitation of this our people often use 'them' as a nominative:—'Them are just the gloves I want.' 'Them are the boys' is exactly translated from the correct Irish is iad sin na buachaillidhe. 'Oh she melted the hearts of the swains in them parts.' ('The Widow Malone,' by Lever.)

      In like manner with the pronouns sé, sí (he, she), of which the accusatives é and í are in certain Irish constructions (correctly) used for the nominative forms, which accusative forms are (incorrectly) imported into English. Do chonnairc mé Seadhán agus é n'a shuidhe, 'I saw Shaun and him sitting down,' i.e. 'as he was sitting down.' So also 'don't ask me to go and me having a sore foot.' 'There's the hen and her as fat as butter,' i.e. 'she (the hen) being as fat as butter.'

      The little phrase 'the way' is used among us in several senses, all peculiar, and all derived from Irish. Sometimes it is a direct translation from amhlaidh ('thus,' 'so,' 'how,' 'in a manner'). An old example of this use of amhlaidh in Irish is the following passage from the Boroma (Silva Gadelica):—Is amlaid at chonnaic [Concobar] Laigin ocus Ulaid mán dabaig ocá hól: 'It is how (or 'the way') [Concobar] saw the Lagenians and the Ulstermen [viz. they were] round the vat drinking from it.' Is amhlaidh do bhi Fergus: 'It is thus (or the way) Fergus was [conditioned; that his shout was heard over three cantreds].'

      This same sense is also seen in the expression, 'this is the way I made my money,' i.e. 'this is how I made it.'

      When this expression, 'the way,' or 'how,' introduces a statement it means ''tis how it happened.' 'What do you want, James?' ''Tis the way ma'am, my mother sent me for the loan of the shovel.' This idiom is very common in Limerick, and is used indeed all through Ireland.

      Very often 'the way' is used in the sense of 'in order that':—'Smoking carriages are lined with American cloth the way they wouldn't keep the smell'; 'I brought an umbrella the way I wouldn't get wet'; 'you want not to let the poor boy do for himself [by marrying] the way that you yourself should have all.' (Ir. Pen. Mag.) You constantly hear this in Dublin, even among educated people.

      Sometimes the word way is a direct translation from the Irish caoi, 'a way,' 'a road'; so that the common Irish salutation, Cad chaoi bh-fuil tu? is translated with perfect correctness into the equally common Irish-English salute, 'What way are you?' meaning 'How are you?'

      'This way' is often used by the people in the sense of 'by this time':—'The horse is ready this way,' i.e. 'ready by this time.' СКАЧАТЬ