Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
If we do not hit our goal we will be forced to close the site.

Current status: https://keepboardsalive.com/

Annual subs are best for most impact. If you are still undecided on going Ad Free - you can also donate using the Paypal Donate option. All contribution helps. Thank you.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.

Hiberno-English

124

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,844 ✭✭✭Honey-ec


    My mother in law (Not that i listen to her much) keeps saying Wogeous" as in the weather was Wogeous today" or "the traffic was Wogeous"

    Is that actually a word?


    It's a perfectly cromulent word...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,856 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Greetings include:

    "Alroii?"
    " W'sa craic?"
    "What's the story?"


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,185 ✭✭✭asdasd


    I always liked the Dublin greeting of Head

    Confuses the bejayus out of some.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,388 ✭✭✭✭r3nu4l


    My mother in law (Not that i listen to her much) keeps saying Wogeous" as in the weather was Wogeous today" or "the traffic was Wogeous"

    Is that actually a word?

    She is likely mispronouncing a middle-English word 'odious', used by a lot of Irish people. It means something that causes feelings of hatred or repugnance/disgust...it can also mean arousing but not in the sexual sense, mainly in the sense of 'arousing' negative emotion.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,759 ✭✭✭pawrick


    no one under 60 uses either of these

    ha I still do!!! but not that often any more - too much confusion


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,822 ✭✭✭iPlop


    "Giz a blo o' yer joint or I'll kick deh bollix off yeh"
    "Fcukin' recession ,deh dole won't be as good as it was durin' deh boom"

    "Any odds fer deh bus ,I need to get a new hoodie an give someone a straightner on deh 77A"

    iv'e said it befor and i'll say it again


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,292 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    Why do some people say "I worked there with two weeks" instead of " I worked there for two weeks"?

    What kind of madness is this? (or is that Kerry thing again?)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,971 ✭✭✭Holsten


    Wa? Never in my life heard someone say that.

    Deffo bogger thing.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 92 ✭✭ahmed89


    "bleeeedin eejit"
    ahhhh love irish english


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 92 ✭✭ahmed89


    Dave! wrote: »
    Greetings include:

    "Alroii?"
    " W'sa craic?"
    "What's the story?"
    also "well boy?"


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 423 ✭✭chosen1


    Minerals still used by us boggers in Longford anyway.

    Have also heard it in the north county Dublin where there's mineral bars at teen discos


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 725 ✭✭✭KingLoser


    Holy Christ on a bike, never ask to bum a fag in 'merica, these queer fellas be wearin' the make-up and makin the funnys at ya.

    Well boi, are we baytin on down to da chipper for a feed'a scallops?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4 cmn89


    mikemac wrote: »
    What about red lemonade? Do they not have it? :eek:


    In a pub in London asked for red lemonade and malibu, bar man goes whats that, I was like white lemonade except its red, he never heard of it!!

    Was odrering a ham and cheese toastie in Manchester your one couldnt understand me, i repeated myself about 5 times, i thought she was foriegn but appearently I was speaking too fast??!!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 29,939 ✭✭✭✭Quazzie


    A real culchie one that I've heard (and said) lots of times, but never knew what it is supposed to be.

    "I've nare a cent on me"

    Can anyone confirm what this is supposed to be? I know it means that I have no money on me, but I've heard it loads in other contexts too but never knew where this came from or what word it derived from.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,658 ✭✭✭✭The Sweeper


    Haven't read the whole thread, so dunno if someone else has told this already:

    Urban myth story, lecturer in Oxford University addressing a lecture hall of English students, on double negatives and double positives, and the use of postives with negatives and so on.

    Upshot is he's describing how a double positive remains a positive, a positive with a negative equals a negative ("I will not go"); a double negative is a positive, but then he states clearly that there is no language in the world where a double positive is ever equal to a negative, ever, ever, never.

    And a resounding Irish accent rings out:

    "Yeah. Right."


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,390 ✭✭✭Stench Blossoms


    When I was living in London I used to get stick for saying "Will I do that?" instead of "Shall I do that?". The answer I got everytime was "I dunno, will you?".


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    cmn89 wrote: »
    In a pub in London asked for red lemonade and malibu, bar man goes whats that, I was like white lemonade except its red, he never heard of it!!

    Red lemonade is unique to ireland i believe, plus putting it with Malibu is disgusting, so its no wonder he questioned you.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 122 ✭✭GenghisCon


    The funny thing is that some of what we would categorize as Hiberno-english are actually elements assimilated from other languages and do not originate in the Gaelic.

    It seems that "ye" came to use in Ireland through English settlers and "gorsoon" (now thats a Munster culchie gem! meaning a small child) from the French).

    My personal favorite: "...is a fright to God."

    Only the Irish would view something so bad that it would make an omnipotent being be fearful.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,185 ✭✭✭asdasd


    It seems that "ye" came to use in Ireland through English settlers

    Yes. As did some of the strange prronounciations in Munster ( mostly died out ) where the ea is a long a, not a ee: i.e. beat is pronounced bate, not beet. Shakespeare worked both ways rhyming please with knees and please with trays.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 86 ✭✭yay_for_summer


    ejmaztec wrote: »
    Why do some people say "I worked there with two weeks" instead of " I worked there for two weeks"?

    What kind of madness is this? (or is that Kerry thing again?)

    Ohoh! I say this and have been given out to over it! But it sounds right...and I'm not from Kerry.

    Also, the use of "era" or "dhera" as Gaeilge. Great word.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Rsaeire


    "G'way outta dat wud ya?" = "Would you go away?" i.e. I don't believe you.
    "I was only taking da piss" = "I was only joking".
    "Gis a smoke will ya?" = "Could you give me a cigarette?"
    "What's the craic?" = "How are you?/Any news?"


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,292 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    Ohoh! I say this and have been given out to over it! But it sounds right...and I'm not from Kerry.

    Also, the use of "era" or "dhera" as Gaeilge. Great word.

    And you've been "given out to" as well? :pac:


    also, when drivers "overtake" a car in Ireland, they "pass them out". It sounds more like "collapsing in the street".


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,137 ✭✭✭Monkey61


    Haven't read the whole thread, so dunno if someone else has told this already:

    Urban myth story, lecturer in Oxford University addressing a lecture hall of English students, on double negatives and double positives, and the use of postives with negatives and so on.

    Upshot is he's describing how a double positive remains a positive, a positive with a negative equals a negative ("I will not go"); a double negative is a positive, but then he states clearly that there is no language in the world where a double positive is ever equal to a negative, ever, ever, never.

    And a resounding Irish accent rings out:

    "Yeah. Right."

    That's in a Ross O Carroll Kelly book as well


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    My previous boss politely explained to an American consultant we had that it was probably best if he didn't tell the taxi driver he was phoning that he "Needed a Ride" :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,816 ✭✭✭Acacia


    I was sitting outside with my Canadian relatives, when they asked if I was cold, I replied,

    "No, I'm grand, I have me jumper."

    They were like this :confused: so I had to translate - "I'm fine, I'm wearing my sweater." :pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 202 ✭✭Darkbloom


    "Axe" for "ask".

    The use of ride as both noun and verb in a non-equestrian context, as in "he's a total ride", "fancy a ride"?

    Starting sentences with "sure" - I get comments on this a lot.

    We used to say "shift" for kiss in Offaly as well.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 891 ✭✭✭redfacedbear


    Using 'may' as an imperative - as in

    'You may go on your break now'

    Which does not mean you have permission to go, it means begone!

    My midlands boss confused the hell out of me with that before I copped on what she meant. I hear it a lot down here in Wex too.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,292 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    "A scissors" instead of "A pair of scissors".


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 423 ✭✭chosen1


    A real culchie one that I've heard (and said) lots of times, but never knew what it is supposed to be.

    "I've nare a cent on me"

    Can anyone confirm what this is supposed to be? I know it means that I have no money on me, but I've heard it loads in other contexts too but never knew where this came from or what word it derived from.

    Its Elizabethan English that still survives to an extent in Ireland.
    Ne'er a cent as you say comes from a shortened form of never. Can be heard in common english also in calling someone a "ne'er do well". You'd also hear people asking for e'er a cent, from ever if they were looking for one.


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,678 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    cmn89 wrote: »
    I was like white lemonade
    What does this mean?:o:rolleyes::p

    Genealogy Forum Mod



Advertisement