Questions tagged [hiberno-english]
Questions about the various forms of English (not Gaelic) spoken by natives of the island of Ireland, whether part of the independent Republic of Ireland or in Northern Ireland.
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Etymology and history of the word "haveral"
In Ireland we use the word "haveral" as a derogatory term which kind of means greedy glutton or someone that is careless and caused some kind of a mess. We often put dirty before it.
If you ...
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What does "work away" mean?
What does "work away" in the fourth paragraph mean? At first I thought it meant "be away from home for work", but it also seems to mean "to put forth a persistent, diligent, ...
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Pronunciation of Edinburgh
Why is the Scottish capital Edinburgh pronounced as Edinbruh?
It is not clear to me why the letter "u" is silent, so that the "b" is followed directly by the "r". Then a ...
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Use of "ye" in present-day Ireland and specifically Dublin
I wanted to know if "ye" is widely used in Ireland including Dublin area. And more specifically, if it is commonly used by Millennials and younger generations, or rather is becoming less ...
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What is the origin of "deadly" as "excellent" in Irish and Australian English?
I wonder what the origin of "deadly" as "very good" and "excellent" is in Irish and Australian English. For example, a satisfied hotel guest might say, "The staff ...
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"All hazards and dangers we barter on chance"
This is from the lyrics of "Arthur McBride" by Paul Brady.
...“But,“ says Arthur, “I wouldn’t be proud of your clothes
For you’ve only the lend of them, as I suppose
And you dare not change ...
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What does 'good room' mean in Irish English?
Listening to an Irish podcast, I heard the expression 'good room', and though I'm a native (UK—England) English speaker, I had no idea what it meant as a discrete noun (as opposed to just good+room. ...
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Do American and British English speakers understand the phrase ''to make a hames of sth''?
This phrase is used in Ireland (Hiberno English).
It means to make a mess of something. Interestingly enough, everyone in Ireland knows what this phrase means but very few actually know what a hames ...
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What type of accent does this person have?
My friend has lived in Kenya for the first 8 years of his life and the United States for 2 & 1/2 years. He's been in Ireland since 2009.
He is auditioning for a voiceover job on the radio and they ...
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bobbing their hats at the chapel doors (author's use of the word)
I'm having a really hard time understanding this phrase (from Iris Murdoch's story "Something Special"):
“Don’t start on that thing again,” said her mother. “Sam’s a nice young fellow, and ...
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Why are sub-subsections of the Irish constitution marked with the degree symbol? [closed]
The accepted legal practice when referring to sub-subsections of the Irish constitution is to use the degree symbol to mark sub-subsections. For example, Art 40.3.3°. This convention is not used for ...
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Where does the expression, "Go scrape mold on yourself" come from? And what does it mean?
My grandfather is from Ireland, and he frequently used this phrase.
I understood it to be an insult, to mean basically "screw you"
I love the phrasing, but have no idea where it comes from. Is ...
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Pronunciation of “lough”
I have two dictionaries which variously give the pronunciation of the Old Irish word lough as læk or lō.
How is it actually pronounced in Ireland?
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Is bludgeon connected with blood or block?
Bludgeon is a short, heavy club which is thicker or loaded at one end.
Both OED and Etymonline say "origin unknown". There are possible Cornish, Celtic, Dutch, cant, Middle French, Irish and Gaelic ...
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Where in Ireland, if anywhere, at the time of James Joyce, would "hoe" and "whore" sound similar enough to pun?
Where in Ireland, if anywhere, at the time of James Joyce (1882 – 1941), would "hoe" and "whore" sound similar enough to pun?
This question pertains to Does Joyce, in Finnegans Wake or Ulysses, ...
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Pronunciation of "scald" and "old" (or "ol' ") in West Ireland
Martin McDonagh's play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, is obviously set in Leenane/Leenaun, Connemara, County Galway in the west of Ireland.
In the script, the two words "scald" and "ol'" (short for "...
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Towel pronounced as tawrl in Irish dialect?
My grandmother always says 'warsh' instead of 'wash'. She's from Northern Ireland. I always wrote this off as an odd thing she would do, but today I was reading that it's actually common in some ...
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"The Garvaghy/Ormeau/Falls/Crumlin Road": The in NI road "names"
In the UK, we often hear of roads in Northern Ireland being called "The X Road" in the news. This isn't common usage in Great Britain. I can think of five reasons why this may be common usage, but ...
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Irish slang word for working and taking state welfare payment
I think I heard this somewhere before. Is there an Irish (British maybe?) word for taking money from the state for unemployment, but then actually working a job secretly on the side.
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Irish slang for being drunk
Hello everyone - A woman used an Irish slang term for being drunk and I could not quite get what she said.
Does anyone understand what she says?
It is said at 1:18 in the following YouTube video
...
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How is wee used in Northern Ireland?
I hear people use it a lot, but I'm not really clear on its meaning. This site says
Wee: Small. Used by every single Northern Irish person. “Have a wee bun”, “Would you like a wee bag?”
And from ...
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How are English forms of Irish names used?
I've noticed that many Irish people use both their English and Irish versions of the name.
For example, Moya Brennan, born Máire Ní Bhraonáin
Can someone tell me what is the official status of ...
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What word(s) do children of English native speakers use for "kid"/"child"/etc
I'm looking for (a) word(s) that is/are perceived to be child's language by adults, not words used by adults to describe children. What would be fine though are words used by adults when they are ...
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Swear words in common usage by educated people in 1916
What swear words might have been commonly used in conversation (and, in particular, oral argument) in and around 1916, by literate men? As sources from the time are largely written, it is difficult to ...
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Why "enough for to fill" instead of "enough to fill" in this sentence?
"I drank enough drink for to fill Galway Bay". This is from an old Irish drinking song called "Drink it up, men", by the Dubliners. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niOHxjdKQ-c
My question is:
Is ...
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"What happened to ____?" versus "What happened _____?"
I seem to remember my parents, who came from Dublin, Ireland,
saying a phrase like "what happened it" or "what happened him"
rather than "happened to it" or "happened to him".
But it might have been ...
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Irish folk song: Hunt the Hare, and played some funny rigs
I'm making a choral arrangement of the Irish folk song "Rocky Road to Dublin." One variation of the lyrics is here. I've been able to decipher the meaning of most of the words, many of which were ...
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Why does Northern Ireland pronunciation sound similar to American?
Recently, I started watching a TV show The Fall, which takes place in Northern Ireland. Their intonations and accents are unique, but their pronunciation sounds a lot like North American English to me....
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"Is himself in?" What does it mean?
Context - A stranger knocks on your door and asks "Is himself in?"
himself, a reflexive pronoun, here seems to be used for a nominative pronoun.
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"What do you be?"
A guy in this video comes up with a very unusual greeting:
Hello, top of the morning to ya! What do you say? What do you be?
I know that the first sentence is an old Irish idiom. But what is the ...
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Telling the time [closed]
In Ireland we say:
"Twenty-five to ten" (9:35) (21:35)
"Twenty to ten" (9:40) (21:40)
"A quarter to ten" (9:45) (21:45)
"Ten to ten" (9:50) (21:50)
"Five to ten" (9:55) (21:55)
"Ten o'clock" or just "...
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What is the origin of the phrase "do a line with someone"?
What is the origin of the phrase "do a line with someone", meaning "have a regular romantic or sexual romantic relationship with someone"?
I learnt this phrase from an Irish colleague of mine the ...
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Why do we say County Durham?
In Ireland all the counties are expressed as 'County....' followed by the name, e.g. County Kerry, County Galway, County Clare etc. This equally applies to the six counties north of the border, County ...
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Why do English people pronounce 'sixth' as 'sicth'? [duplicate]
It's common practice in Ireland (and the US as far as I know) to pronounce the x in the middle of sixth: six-th [sɪksθ]. However, I've noticed from visits to England as well as watching British ...
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Where does the Irish idiom "at all at all" come from?
It's a common stereotype of Irish-English speakers that they end sentences with "at all, at all" as in
You want a drink at all, at all?
You have any money at all, at all?
My question is ...
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Is asking "come again?" to a complete stranger over the phone rude? [closed]
My Irish colleague told me that when talking to a customer over the phone asking:"come again?" is considered rude and even offensive since it is very informal and almost demanding.
Now I did not ...
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Is 'so I did', and other like expressions, at the end of a sentence good English?
In Northern Ireland people will say 'He went to Bohemia on holiday, so he did', or 'I need to do some shopping, so I do'. Is this correct English?
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Irish English use of "college" for secondary schools?
I've been filtering locations in Ireland from a list that comes with Google Maps location data for each, selecting those that are close to a "college".
I just checked on one of those locations ...
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Adjective relating to Great Britain and Ireland
Is there an adjective meaning “from or pertaining to the British Isles” (or if you prefer “from Great Britain, Ireland or surrounding islands”, or “from the Atlantic Archipelago”, or whatever floats ...
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Why do people say “Why don’t you not?”
Why do people say “Why don’t you not?” — what is meant by that? It seems especially to be a Dublin thing.
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Is "mens" a valid word?
I've been living in Ireland for almost a year now and I start noticing they use the word "mens" a lot. I can see it used in:
Shops, to denote the area where you can find men's clothes
In sport, when ...
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delutherer, deluderer
My dad (who is Irish) has been using the word "delutherer" since I was tiny. It derives from "to delude" and is used to affectionately/teasingly denote someone who is trying to trick you or cajole you ...
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"Do a shop" for "go shopping"
This has puzzled me for a few years now. When preceded by 'a', shop becomes a noun. Does "do a shop" even make sense then? The correct phrase for me was always "go shopping", or ...
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Is there a name for how the Irish use so, so?
There is an Irish English structural usage of the word so, that is I think unique to Ireland.
Are we going to the cinema, so?
Where is the dog, so?
The word so is unneeded and seems to mean '...
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Is “ O’Leary’s’s ” orthographically correct? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Possessive of a word that's already possessive?
There’s a bar near me named O’Leary’s Irish Pub—or just O’Leary’s for short. One day, they changed their menu. I wrote to a ...
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Does Santy (Santa) exist outside Ireland?
It's common at this time of year for adults to ask small children What's Santy bringing you? (awkward as this is for those of us who don't celebrate Christmas). Is this pronunciation of Santa unique ...
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What is the origin of the phrase "Top of the morning to you"?
Each morning, a colleague of mine greets me with the phrase:
Top of the morning to you!
I've tried to figure out what the meaning of this really is and how to properly respond, however there seems ...
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Origin and meaning of "strealish"/"streelish"
I've heard the word strealish (or streelish) used to describe someone with a lost or wan look or someone unkempt or untidy.
I know it's an Irishism, but what is the origin of the word and what did it ...
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What is "lemonade" in American English?
Lemonade is a fizzy drink, strongly carbonated. It comes in two varieties, white (which is actually colourless) and red. I have never known anyone to make it at home.
Various things I've picked up in ...
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Origins and meaning of "can you not"
What is the origin and meaning of the phrase can you not? To my ear, it has an archaic tone, but searches yield entries in the urban dictionary, along with one quote from Sense and Sensibility. Its ...
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