Phrases and turns is phrase as Gaeilge that are deadly

lawrencesummers · 05-09-2019 02:16PM

A few summers back before iPhones and zuckerbergs were all the rage and I was a young lad with a summer job, a few pound, and the run of a bar i was in the very very early stages of courting a girl who worked in the same bar as me in the Gaeltacht, neither of us were native or fluent Irish speakers but I can get by.

In a hurry to finish work as a gang of us were heading out for the evening and I was probably hopefully to move the courting on a bit! I served my last pint that day to a regular sage at the bar, a local fella who is well known nationally, a published author, historian, character and all round gas man, intellectual, sharp and a pleasure to have looking in at you.

He raised his now settled pint almost to his lips in a pre mindfulness moment of mindfulness he paused, looked at me and said....

Tog go bog e a Mach, agus ma faigheann to a bog é, goaithaigh tu arist é.

I don’t remember much of that great time, but I’ll never forget that.

(Take it easy kid, and if you get it easy you will get it again)

Tammy! · 05-09-2019 02:23PM

lawrencesummers wrote: »

....

Tog go bog e a Mach, agus ma faigheann to a bog é, goaithaigh tu arist é.

I don’t remember much of that great time, but I’ll never forget that.

(Take it easy kid, and if you get it easy you will get it again)

Agus an raibh tu?

Reati · 05-09-2019 03:34PM

Dearglach - The red glow in the evening skies around autumn
Clagarnach - The sound of raindrops against a roof or window when you are inside.
Spútrach- Sound of rain splashing in puddles or ground that has been temporarily turned to mud by rainfall.
Seadbhraon - Small raindrops that are carried horizontally by the wind
Seordán - This is a rustling sound, such as is made by leafy branches swaying in the breeze.
Seoithín na gaoithe sna crainn - this means the whispering of the wind in the trees.

https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/irish-words-for-autumn-4265770-Oct2018/ All of his pieces are worth a read.

lawrencesummers · 05-09-2019 05:14PM

Tammy! wrote: »

Agus an raibh tu?

As was mentioned earlier...Is minic a bhris béal duine a shrón

Tammy! · 05-09-2019 05:28PM

lawrencesummers wrote: »

As was mentioned earlier...Is minic a bhris béal duine a shrón

Ah tá do bheola séalaithe ansin - your lips are sealed then...

I love this thread. I think I'm going to do a course or something

Reati · 05-09-2019 07:05PM

Tá sé ag ligean uisce isteach: He's letting in water.

Said about someone who is getting old.

Reati · 05-09-2019 07:11PM

One from the islands.

Bíonn súil le muir: The sea gives hope.

Comes from a longer version that is Bíonn súil le muir ach ní bhíonn súil leis an uaigh: The sea gives hope but there is no hope from the grave.

mr chips · 05-09-2019 09:19PM

Tá saol a' mhadaidh bháin aige - he has the life of the white dog, i.e. the life of Reilly/an easy life. IIRC this is because a white dog was considered no good as a sheepdog (too difficult to distinguish from far away maybe?), so got to lie in front of the fire a lot more - not sure how true that really is, as animals usually had to earn their keep!

Ag dradarnacht - loitering outside a public house in a state of intoxication

Ar mhuin na muice - on the pig's back, i.e. everything's going swimmingly.

Ar shlí na fírinne - on the path of truth. Quite a beautiful way of saying someone has died.

Bóín Dé - a little cow of God. A ladybird (think of the black spots on its carapace).

"Spáinneach" is a Spanish person, "Sasanach" is an English person, "Gearmánach" is a German person and so on. But the word "francach" with a small f doesn't actually mean French person - it means rat. It used to be "luchóg fhrancach", literally "French mouse" - the theory being that there were no rats in Ireland until the Norman ships landed and brought them here. How true this really is, I couldn't say - you'd have thought the Vikings might have brought a few! But in any case, the word for a French person is now the same as the word for a rat. Apologies to any cheese eating surrender monkeys who may be reading this ...:pac:

On the topic of nationality/ethnicity, "fear dubh" means a man with black hair, heavy eyebrows etc even though it translates to English as a "black" man. If as an English speaker you want to know how to say a black man (i.e. someone of sub-Saharan African descent) in Irish, the term is "fear gorm" - literally translated as a blue man! Oh, and a guy who likes to go marching in a bowler hat on the twelfth of July while singing The Sash isn't called an Orangeman in Irish - he's a "fear buí", a yellow man.

Not a specific phrase or word, but the alphabet used to be taught using the names of trees - Ailm, Beith, Coll, Dair, Éabhadh, Fearn, Gort, Huath, Ifín, Luis, Muin, Nion, Óir, Peith, Ruis, Sail, Tinne, Úr.

Reati · 05-09-2019 10:06PM

mr chips wrote: »

Tá saol a' mhadaidh bháin aige - he has the life of the white dog, i.e. the life of Reilly/an easy life. IIRC this is because a white dog was considered no good as a sheepdog (too difficult to distinguish from far away maybe?), so got to lie in front of the fire a lot more - not sure how true that really is, as animals usually had to earn their keep!

Ag dradarnacht - loitering outside a public house in a state of intoxication

Ar mhuin na muice - on the pig's back, i.e. everything's going swimmingly.

Ar shlí na fírinne - on the path of truth. Quite a beautiful way of saying someone has died.

Bóín Dé - a little cow of God. A ladybird (think of the black spots on its carapace).

"Spáinneach" is a Spanish person, "Sasanach" is an English person, "Gearmánach" is a German person and so on. But the word "francach" with a small f doesn't actually mean French person - it means rat. It used to be "luchóg fhrancach", literally "French mouse" - the theory being that there were no rats in Ireland until the Norman ships landed and brought them here. How true this really is, I couldn't say - you'd have thought the Vikings might have brought a few! But in any case, the word for a French person is now the same as the word for a rat. Apologies to any cheese eating surrender monkeys who may be reading this ...:pac:

On the topic of nationality/ethnicity, "fear dubh" means a man with black hair, heavy eyebrows etc even though it translates to English as a "black" man. If as an English speaker you want to know how to say a black man (i.e. someone of sub-Saharan African descent) in Irish, the term is "fear gorm" - literally translated as a blue man! Oh, and a guy who likes to go marching in a bowler hat on the twelfth of July while singing The Sash isn't called an Orangeman in Irish - he's a "fear buí", a yellow man.

Not a specific phrase or word, but the alphabet used to be taught using the names of trees - Ailm, Beith, Coll, Dair, Éabhadh, Fearn, Gort, Huath, Ifín, Luis, Muin, Nion, Óir, Peith, Ruis, Sail, Tinne, Úr.

Thanks for sharing. Really interesting stuff in there.

In general in Irish when refering to a person's "colour", it's their hair but to add another twist to Fear dubh, it is also a term for the devil (literally for the term Dark Prince). The devil was oft refered to as the Fear dubh só when People of dark skin showed up they had to come up with something else and fear gorm was born. I heard it was due to the colour of the clothes they wore.

Also, Irish has some interesting changes for colors depending on context like object. For example grey animals are often called gorm not Liath. Grey squirrels are Iora gorm not Iora liath as one might expect. Same with red (dearg) Iora rua ór Madra rua

The colours in the tricolour also hits these rules. The green isn't Glas but uaine and the orange is Flannbhuí but white remains Bán.

mr chips · 05-09-2019 10:29PM

Yeah, back when I was involved in teaching I used to make a point of clarifying the difference between oráiste (the fruit) and flannbhuí (the colour). I must admit I'd be more used to "glas" being used as the term for grey in relation to an animal - I think I remember a storybook from early childhood called An tAsailín Glas - the little grey donkey. Now that I think of it, the only term I've heard for a grey squirrel is "iora glas" - I hadn't come across "iora gorm" before now. As you say, dearg wouldn't be used in relation to a living creature - instead it would be iora rua, fear rua etc. Interestingly, while these days people are often given a hard time for being ginger, red-headed people were usually venerated/respected in Gaelic culture.

Speaking of dearg - "tá an t-ádh dearg air" = he's very very lucky.

Going back up the page to the term buinneach - another, possibly more onomatopoeic version is "rup rap". But that's the term for having vomiting & diarrhoea at the same time, a terrible thing altogether!

FishOnABike · 05-09-2019 10:51PM

mr chips wrote: »

Speaking of dearg - "tá an t-ádh dearg air" = he's very very lucky.

I've seen dearg used the same way in place names e.g. Srón Dearg - a very sharp ridge.

mr chips · 06-09-2019 01:34AM

For sure, that's quite common in placenames (a whole treasure trove of language when you delve into them). One of the best known will be Loch Dearg / Lough Derg. There's a place in south Co. Derry called Broughderg, which comes from Bruach Dearg - red river bank. There's another not too far from it called Gulladuff, from Gualann Dubh - black shoulder. Not sure what the specific reason for that would be, but it could be a ridge which maybe had a lot of dense and dark forest, or maybe even faces north and never gets direct sunlight.

Going back to matters lavatorial - if you want to express ill will towards someone, you could use the following: Buinneach míosa ort! (May you have a month of diarrhoea).

Changing tack - there was a tongue-twister further up the thread (ná bac le mac a' bhacaigh ...) so here's another: Rinne Máire gáire gan náire ag an fhaire i nDoire anuraidh.
It translates as "Máire laughed without shame at the wake in Derry last year." Of course, it only works in Irish, the same way that "she sells sea shells ..." wouldn't work in any language other than English That said, I can think of a couple of sayings which have direct equivalents/translations -

Is measa a ghlam ná a ghréim - his bark is worse than his bite.
Seitheann fíon fírinne - in vino veritas.

Reati · 06-09-2019 07:22AM

mr chips wrote: »

the only term I've heard for a grey squirrel is "iora glas"

You're right! I did a typo. Iora gorm doesn't mean anything. It is iora glas.

In that vein, here is one.

Ní bhíonn saoi gan locht: There isn’t a wise man without flaws.

Fourier · 06-09-2019 08:38AM

Bithiúnach. Means an arsehole, but also padding.

Professor Moriarty · 06-09-2019 09:51AM

Slíbhín, Bastún, Cábóg, Plispín. A sneak, a lout, a yokel, a fool.

Squiggle · 06-09-2019 11:43AM

Is glas iad na cnoic i bhfad uainn.

Far away hills are green

Tá gach madra dána ag doras a thuigh féinn. ( Spelling !!)

Every dog is brave at his own door.

sligojoek · 07-09-2019 02:31AM

Squiggle wrote: »

Is glas iad na cnoic i bhfad uainn.

Far away hills are green

Tá gach madra dána ag doras a thuigh féinn. ( Spelling !!)

Every dog is brave at his own door.

Class.

Phrases and turns is phrase as Gaeilge that are deadly

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