English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

to the person represented by the noun or pronoun. Typical examples are: one fellow threatening another says, 'I'll break your head for you': or 'I'll soon settle his hash for him.' This of course also comes from Irish; Gur scoilt an plaosg aige, 'so that he broke his skull for him' (Battle of Gavra); Do ghearr a reim aige beo, 'he shortened his career for him.' ('The Amadán Mór.') See 'On' in Vocabulary.

There is still another peculiar usage of the English preposition for, which is imitated or translated from the Irish, the corresponding Irish preposition here being mar. In this case the prepositional phrase is added on, not to denote injury, but to express some sort of mild depreciation:—'Well, how is your new horse getting on?' 'Ah, I'm tired of him for a horse: he is little good.' A dog keeps up a continuous barking, and a person says impatiently, 'Ah, choke you for a dog' (may you be choked). Lowry Looby, who has been appointed to a place and is asked how he is going on with it, replies, 'To lose it I did for a place.' ('Collegians.') In the Irish story of Bodach an Chota Lachtna ('The Clown with the Grey Coat'), the Bodach offers Ironbones some bones to pick, on which Ironbones flies into a passion; and Mangan, the translator, happily puts into the mouth of the Bodach:—'Oh, very well, then we will not have any more words about them, for bones.' Osheen, talking in a querulous mood about all his companions—the Fena—having left him, says, [were I in my former condition] Ni ghoirfinn go bráth orruibh, mar Fheinn, 'I would never call on you, for Fena.' This last and its like are the models on which the Anglo-Irish phrases are formed.

'Of you' (where of is not intended for off) is very frequently used in the sense of from you: 'I'll take the stick of you whether you like it or not.' 'Of you' is here simply a translation of the Irish díot, which is always used in this connexion in Irish: bainfead díot é, 'I will take it of you.' In Irish phrases like this the Irish uait ('from you') is not used; if it were the people would say 'I'll take it from you,' not of you. (Russell.)

'Oh that news was on the paper yesterday.' 'I went on the train to Kingstown.' Both these are often heard in Dublin and elsewhere. Correct speakers generally use in in such cases. (Father Higgins and Kinahan.)

In some parts of Ulster they use the preposition on after to be married:—'After Peggy M‘Cue had been married on Long Micky Diver' (Sheumas MacManus).

'To make a speech takes a good deal out of me,' i.e. tires me, exhausts me, an expression heard very often among all classes. The phrase in italics is merely the translation of a very common Irish expression, baineann sé rud éigin asam, it takes something out of me.

'I am afraid of her,' 'I am frightened at her,' are both correct English, meaning 'she has frightened me': and both are expressed in Donegal by 'I am afeard for her,' 'I am frightened for her,' where in both cases for is used in the sense of 'on account of.'

In Irish any sickness, such as fever, is said to be on a person, and this idiom is imported into English. If a person wishes to ask 'What ails you?' he often

gives it the form of 'What is on you?' (Ulster), which is exactly the English of Cad é sin ort?