Random thought...'yer wan'

looksee

I had vaguely thought that 'Oulwan' was a version of 'old one', in so far as I thought about it at all. Then today I heard someone refer to Noillig na mBan and my brain went 'oh that's where its from!'.

I am not an Irish speaker, but its a phrase I have known for years and never made the connection. Am I rite?

Jim_Hodge

Not at all. Just Old One. Usually Oul one but also oul wan.

looksee

But yer wan is never applied to men, they are always yer man. Yer wan is reputed to be used by Dubs to mean 'your mother' which is a bit specific if its just 'old one'.

Jellybaby_1

I remember this was discussed here before. In Dublin if a certain group of women or men was sitting in a pub for instance, and they were gossiping about a woman who had just walked in and sat elsewhere in the pub, they might say 'would you look at that one, the state of her!!' Which to translate would be 'look at that woman over there, look at what she is wearing, isn't it shocking/awful/disgraceful/horrible!' It's hard to explain much further really, I just accept that 'your wan' is 'that woman' and 'your man' is 'that man'. It's not nice though. 🙂

JuliusCaesar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058278505/random-thought-yer-wan

That's interesting, hadn't thought of that - the pronunciation of 'bean' being near to "wan" which is of course also the Dublinese for 'one'. Sounds likely, now that you mention it. I wonder if there's a etymology for the use of 'wan/one' for woman?

Day Lewin

"Wan" is official Dublinese for a female. "Fella" is the male equivalent.

You can have, for example, little youngwans, and little fellas. (Small children)

Young wans and young fellas. (The yewth!)

Ould wans and ould fellas. -- that's us.

Yer Wan and Yer Man. (Or yer man and his Mott.)

It is from "one" - not connected with Irish Bean.

Fun fact to finish: "yer wan" are my official pronouns.

Jellybaby_1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121730745#Comment_121730745

Spot on, young Day!!

spurious

Yungflahs.