Category: Language & Communication
In the following pages whenever a word or a phrase is not assigned to any origin it is to be understood as belonging to this third class:--that is so far as is known at present; for I have no doubt that many of these will be found, after further research, to be either Irish-Ga...
[In this Vocabulary, as well indeed as through the whole book, _gh_ and _ch_ are to be sounded guttural, as in _lough_ and _loch_, unless otherwise stated or implied. Those who...
11. CHAPTER XI._Church_, _Chapel_, _Scallan_. All through Ireland it is customary to call a Protestant place of worship a 'church,' and that belonging to Roman Catholics a 'chapel': and this u...
4. CHAPTER IV.In this chapter I am obliged to quote the original Irish passages a good deal as a guarantee of authenticity for the satisfaction of Irish scholars: but for those who have no Ir...
7. CHAPTER VII._Shall_ and _Will_. It has been pretty clearly shown that the somewhat anomalous and complicated niceties in the English use of _shall_ and _will_ have been developed within the...
12. CHAPTER XII.Among fireside amusements propounding riddles was very general sixty or seventy years ago. This is a custom that has existed in Ireland from very early times, as the reader may...
9. CHAPTER IX.We in Ireland are rather prone to exaggeration, perhaps more so than the average run of peoples. Very often the expressions are jocose, or the person is fully conscious of the e...
8. CHAPTER VIII.The Irish delighted in sententious maxims and apt illustrations compressed into the fewest possible words. Many of their proverbs were evolved in the Irish language, of which a...
5. CHAPTER V.Bad as the devil is he has done us some service in Ireland by providing us with a fund of anecdotes and sayings full of drollery and fun. This is all against his own interests;...
6. CHAPTER VI.The general run of our people do not swear much; and those that do commonly limit themselves to the name of the devil either straight out or in some of its various disguised for...
1. CHAPTER I.In the following pages whenever a word or a phrase is not assigned to any origin it is to be understood as belonging to this third class:--that is so far as is known at present;...
2. CHAPTER II.The Irish _ni'l la fos e_ [neel law fo-say: it isn't day yet] is often used for emphasis in asseveration, even when persons are speaking English; but in this case the saying is...
10. CHAPTER X.You attempt in vain to bring a shameless coarse-minded man to a sense of the evil he has done:--'Ye might as well put a blister on a hedgehog.' (Tyrone.)
3. CHAPTER III.Assertions are often made by using the negative of the opposite assertion. 'You must be hungry now Tom, and this little rasher will do you no harm,' meaning it will do you good....
16. PART III.--SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE.--Chapter XIX. The Family--XX. TheHouse--XXI. Food, Fuel, and Light--XXII. Dress and Personal Adornment--XXIII. Agriculture and Pasturage--XXIV. Workers in Wood, Metal, and Stone--XXV. Corn Mills--XXVI. Trades a...
15. PART II.--RELIGION, LEARNING, AND ART.--Chapter IX. Paganism--X.14. PART I.--GOVERNMENT, MILITARY SYSTEM, AND LAW.--Chapter I. Laying the