Why can't the Irish (schools) teach their children how to speak?

Judgement Day · 07-07-2011 08:57AM #1

I've just been inflicting Newstalk's Breakfast programme on myself and I find about five minutes is usually enough to wake me up as the tabloid presentation is so appalling. Anyway, the standard of English on many of Newstalk's programmes is bad at the best of times - news regularly pronounced as nus and today when covering the Roscommon Hospital debacle Chris Donoghue asked a FG TD whether he had tic-taced about the matter with his fellow FG before deciding what way to vote. WTF!! Why not use normal English - discussed the matter?

Anybody else got any teeth grating pet hates?

UnknownSpecies · 07-07-2011 09:01AM

To be honest, I listen to newstalk and find the way they speak fine.

cruiser178 · 07-07-2011 09:05AM

Judgement Day wrote: »

I've just been inflicting Newstalk's Breakfast programme on myself and I find about five minutes is usually enough to wake me up as the tabloid presentation is so appalling. Anyway, the standard of English on many of Newstalk's programmes is bad at the best of times - news regularly pronounced as nus and today when covering the Roscommon Hospital debacle Chris Donoghue asked a FG TD whether he had tic-taced about the matter with his fellow FG before deciding what way to vote. WTF!! Why not use normal English - discussed the matter?

Anybody else got any teeth grating pet hates?

That wouldn't bother me, its the majority of the younger generation talking like spas that winds me up.

Bigcheeze · 07-07-2011 09:06AM

Hate the use of "Yee" on radio for You plural.

For some reason Yee is deemed acceptable but the Dublin equivalent "youze" is not.

And the inability to pronounce "th"

pickarooney · 07-07-2011 09:07AM

Why on earth would you expect a school to teach a child to speak? What exactly are you doing with your kids for the first 5 years of their lives?

Also, why can't you spell your own name?

UnknownSpecies · 07-07-2011 09:09AM

pickarooney wrote: »

Why on earth would you expect a school to teach a child to speak? What exactly are you doing with your kids for the first 5 years of their lives?

Also, why can't you spell your own name?

Well spotted

dlofnep · 07-07-2011 09:13AM

Bigcheeze wrote: »

Hate the use of "Yee" on radio for You plural.

For some reason Yee is deemed acceptable but the Dublin equivalent "youze" is not.

And the inability to pronounce "th"

We speak Hiberno-English, not English. It's perfectly acceptable to not pronounce the th. "You'ze" just sounds dirty though, "ye" is used a lot more at a national level, that's why it's tolerated more.

reprazant · 07-07-2011 09:13AM

Bigcheeze wrote: »

Hate the use of "Yee" on radio for You plural.

For some reason Yee is deemed acceptable but the Dublin equivalent "youze" is not.

And the inability to pronounce "th"

Possibly because 'Ye' is actually an English word while 'Youse' is just a colloquial slang word.

dlofnep · 07-07-2011 09:16AM

pickarooney wrote: »

Why on earth would you expect a school to teach a child to speak? What exactly are you doing with your kids for the first 5 years of their lives?

Also, why can't you spell your own name?

Not to side with the OP, but technically - it's correct.

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/judgement.html

peckerhead · 07-07-2011 09:20AM

reprazant wrote: »

Possibly because 'Ye' is actually an English word while 'Youse' is just a colloquial slang word.

Piffle. It's a Dub/culchie thing.

If you think they're bad on Newstalk, youse should try listening to Spin SW for a while. :cool:

Bigcheeze · 07-07-2011 09:21AM

dlofnep wrote: »

We speak Hiberno-English, not English. It's perfectly acceptable to not pronounce the th. "You'ze" just sounds dirty though, "ye" is used a lot more at a national level, that's why it's tolerated more.

I would use words in a way that could be interpreted as hiberno English - e.g. Describing things as "grand". However, saying " tree" instead of "three" is just an inability to speak correctly IMO. I would never say "ye" .

Bigcheeze · 07-07-2011 09:23AM

reprazant wrote: »

Possibly because 'Ye' is actually an English word while 'Youse' is just a colloquial slang word.

Fair point but it still grates.

hidinginthebush · 07-07-2011 09:26AM

The one that really annoys me on radio is when they say "row" to describe any sort of disagreement or altercation.

Eg. Government are in a row with union workers
A man was injured after a row broke out on the street

Really annoys me

maximoose · 07-07-2011 09:27AM

Ye, Yis, Yousons, Youze, Yizzer.

These all really annoy me.

The plural of you is you, its not a hard concept.

dlofnep · 07-07-2011 09:31AM

Bigcheeze wrote: »

I would use words in a way that could be interpreted as hiberno English - e.g. Describing things as "grand". However, saying " tree" instead of "three" is just an inability to speak correctly IMO. I would never say "ye" .

It's not an inability to speak. A lack of 'th', or at least rare use of it has lead to it being normalised.

Dravokivich · 07-07-2011 09:35AM

Why don't you dictate a strongly worded letter?

El Siglo · 07-07-2011 09:44AM

Does it matter how someone speaks, rather than what they have to say? I would rather keep my flat, bogger, midlands accent and say something smart than sound like Brian Dobson and talk as much shite.

mrsdewinter · 07-07-2011 09:53AM

I take far more issue with the level of our debating skills. I wouldn't mind how anybody pronounced their 3s if they were able to articulate an intelligent point and back it up when challenged.
As a nation, we're supposedly famous talkers but we have absolutely no debating skills. And I'm not just talking about rent-a-rant shows like Liveline - the same point applies to supposedly high-brow political shows which just revert to politicians repeating the same point over and over again.
Every time I meet young American cousins and hear how articulate they are, I cringe. They make their Irish counterparts sound so thick - which is hugely unfair on our young people.

Judgement Day · 07-07-2011 10:06AM

pickarooney wrote: »

Why on earth would you expect a school to teach a child to speak? What exactly are you doing with your kids for the first 5 years of their lives?

Also, why can't you spell your own name?

I am well aware of the difference in spelling of the Terminator movie - Judgment (American spelling) Day and my (English spelling) Judgement - thank you for pointing it out though. :rolleyes:

pickarooney · 07-07-2011 10:14AM

Judgement Day wrote: »

I am well aware of the difference in spelling of the Terminator movie - Judgment (American spelling) Day and my (English spelling) Judgement - thank you for pointing it out though. :rolleyes:

Yeah... it makes sense to spell your username differently in your sig all right. You got me there. Pew-pew, hasta la vista.

So, back to teachers being charged with your children's elocution - bit of a ridiculous notion, no?

Judgement Day · 07-07-2011 02:19PM

pickarooney wrote: »

Yeah... it makes sense to spell your username differently in your sig all right. You got me there. Pew-pew, hasta la vista.

So, back to teachers being charged with your children's elocution - bit of a ridiculous notion, no?

My initial post was just an early morning rant - as was my snotty reply to you but I am genuinely pissed off with the mangling of the language by the politicians and the media in general. Meaningless Celtic Tiger and post-Celtic Tiger expressions trip off the politicians tongues and are picked up and run with by lazy media people. Celtic Tiger phrases like 'going forward', 'hands on', 'bottoms up', 'honey pot project' have always infuriated me but these have now been joined by post-Celtic Tiger gloomy expressions such as 'we are where we are' and 'kicking the can down the road'.....FFS!! :mad:

As for leaving it to the teachers - well I can assure you that I don't and despite the children going to a 'good' school I have them under threat of death not to mispronounce the letter 'h' (which some of their teachers do), not to use words like mammy etc.etc. and just in case you thing I'm trying to bring them up as little West Brits I also get after them if they start using words from rubbish like 'Home & Away'. Enough of this from me, it was just blowing of steam and going forward I will keep such threads for Ranting & Raving.

Cat Melodeon · 07-07-2011 02:27PM

Judgement Day wrote: »

M
...despite the children going to a 'good' school I have them under threat of death not to mispronounce the letter 'h' (which some of their teachers do), not to use words like mammy etc.etc.

Wtf is wrong with 'mammy'? What do they call you, mummy, mom? You can't get more imported and non-Irish than not calling yore ma by her proper name, ie mAmmy.

Judgement Day · 15-07-2011 05:45PM

I thought that I'd get more of a reaction to this topic but what the hell. My old friend Matt Cooper has just mangled theatre (theater) - does anybody really speak like that? Another teeth grater he used recently was columes for columns - this is a person, unlike yours truly, who has had the benefit of a third level education. A former Editor of the Sunday Tribune, columnist with the Indo, Sunday Times etc....

mikemac · 15-07-2011 05:52PM

For a good radio voice I like Henry McKeane on Today FM or Philip Boucher Hayes over on Radio One

Judgement Day wrote: »

I've just been inflicting Newstalk's Breakfast programme on myself and I find about five minutes is usually enough to wake me up as the tabloid presentation is so appalling.

Newstalk was a better radio station when it was Dublin only

Late Night Live with Declan Carty and Hidden History with Pat Liddy were quality shows
Then it all changed and they got in a new crew like that headcase from Radio Kerry, Orla Barry.

Celly Smunt · 15-07-2011 05:54PM

mikemac wrote: »

Newstalk was a better radio station when it was Dublin only

Late Night Live with Declan Carty and Hidden History with Pat Liddy were quality shows
Then it all changed and they got in a new crew like that headcase from Radio Kerry, Orla Barry.

Anyway

Ireland was better when it was Dublin only also

anawfulbogey · 15-07-2011 06:01PM

Bigcheeze wrote: »

Hate the use of "Yee" on radio for You plural.

For some reason Yee is deemed acceptable but the Dublin equivalent "youze" is not.

And the inability to pronounce "th"

It is acceptable. Its actually an Old English term, the more correct translation of the Irish version and in very common use almost exclusively over 'you' in Waterford/The South East.

iguana · 15-07-2011 06:02PM

maximoose wrote: »

Ye, Yis, Yousons, Youze, Yizzer.

These all really annoy me.

The plural of you is you, its not a hard concept.

Ye is a correct word for second person plural and still commonly used in Hiberno-English, which shouldn't be a hard concept for you to grasp, yet seemingly is.

hatrickpatrick · 15-07-2011 06:18PM

The only Irish accent I find truly bizarre is when some Dublin dialects turn a one syllable word into a two syllable word by adding a "w" in the middle, for example when "booze" becomes "bew-es" and "clothes" becomes "cloh-wez", "news" becomes "newez" etc.

I always wonder how that dialect developed, whether maybe it came from how spellings would be pronounced if we were still speaking Irish or something? It's one of the strangest pronunciation "anomalies" I know of.

No accent "annoys" me though, some of them just make me wonder where they came from or how they ended up with the pronunciation they use. Some accents just turn words into completely different sounds, inexplicably.

mikemac · 15-07-2011 06:20PM

What I found bizarre was the Dubs in a chipper

Curry chips is a curry chip. Or you can order a garlic chip.
A bag of chips is a single
And a fish & chips is one n'one. Well say it wan n'wan

Doesn't happen in any other county

fontanalis · 15-07-2011 06:20PM

i blm txt spk

Raic · 15-07-2011 06:22PM

I just don't understand why people have such a problem with dialectical usages. I think it's completely unjust to say, for example, that pronouncing a voiceless "th" as "t" or a voiced "th" as "d" is wrong when it's a defining characteristic of many native speakers in Ireland (and elsewhere). Oh, and before anyone suggests that I'm merely defending my own usage I'd like to state that I don't pronounce the "th" like that.

Would you say that non-rhotic accents (e.g. pronouncing "car" as "caw") are incorrect simply because all spoken English used to be rhotic? How about the whine-wine merger? Most people in other English speaking countries now pronounce those 2 words the same way when they were originally distinct (they often still are in Ireland). Are all these native English speakers wrong?

Languages evolve and we can see that the English language has many variations all over the world... I don't think it's right to say that one is "better" than another as long as all of them keep their usages self-consistent. In other languages such as those in Scandinavia there is a much wider acceptance of dialectical variation... I don't see why it's such an issue here. There is nothing wrong with dialectical usages, in my opinion, so I suggest everyone just speak as they speak and everything will be "grand".

Why can't the Irish (schools) teach their children how to speak?

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