language

maestroamado · 15-02-2021 11:46am #1

I have noticed in recent years that our language has become very Americian so i just thought i would bring it here as i prefer if we kept abit of our traditional identity.
I will give the few new recent examples i heard on tele recently i can think of off-hand, others may add more, two recent ones made me cringe, yesterday the rugby match i heard "first receiver" and a few weeks ago i heard on All Ireland final day "rookie" I think i am a person of the world but i do not want to feel like i am at a "ball game" I think tv and movie pretty well established.
Whats the view here?

magicbastarder · 15-02-2021 11:51am

i don't think rookie is an american word?
from a quick google, it seems to have been popularised by rudyard kipling. it's a corruption of 'recruit' possibly.

maestroamado · 15-02-2021 11:55am

magicbastarder wrote: »

i don't think rookie is an american word?
from a quick google, it seems to have been popularised by rudyard kipling. it's a corruption of 'recruit' possibly.

The word Rookie originally comes from the American Civil War. In the Civil War new recruits were called “reckies”, which was short for recruit. The word eventually evolved into “Rookie”.

magicbastarder · 15-02-2021 12:00pm

source? i found no mention of the american civil war in my quick google.
the OED has the first recorded use by rudyard kipling, and the context referred to was the british military.

maestroamado · 15-02-2021 12:07pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

source? i found no mention of the american civil war in my quick google.
the OED has the first recorded use by rudyard kipling, and the context referred to was the british military.

My information is you about 100 years out of date.
That's not the reason i raised this i prefer if we kept abit of our own lingo.

Have a nice day....

magicbastarder · 15-02-2021 12:40pm

if you're going to complain about us using supposed american language and then be unable to support your claim that one of the two examples you gave is actually american, i'm not sure if you want a discussion or simply to air your grievances.

regardless of that, what hiberno-english word (or irish, there's a certain irony about us debating our language being supplanted, while we do it as bearla) do you think it has supplanted which you'd prefer we still be using?

maestroamado · 15-02-2021 2:34pm

Why do you decide poster person as complaint, after all that what "forum" supposed to be about.
We cannot change the past but we can chose a direction in the "here and now"
It may be i am wrong as recent events as a recent event has shown we let America do what it pleases here.

Captain Havoc · 15-02-2021 3:06pm

Languages change, that's just the way it is. Some Americanisms such as Fall for Autumn are actually old English words that evolved over here but remained on the other side of the pond. Accents also stagnated in America, where ours evolved. I read a book by Bill Bryson about twenty years ago which went into this, David Crystal is another one who talks about it and, my favourite book on the English language is The adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg.

The global village is becoming more and more connected, therefore so will our accents and language used, particularly the Lingua Franca as it is most susceptible to outside influences. This though is not just true of English but other languages such as German, which has taken showman and handy from English and given them completely new meanings, French has turned the verbs parking and relooking into nouns.

Insect Overlord · 15-02-2021 3:16pm

Have you ever done any academic reading about sociolinguistics, OP? Languages are in a constant state of change and evolution.

Slang comes and goes. Dialects shift. Sometimes multiple languages meet and pidgin forms come to the fore, or get a strong enough foundation to become creole.

New concepts require new words, or the innovative use of established words. Some languages have Higher and Lower forms or registers which might be used in more formal or less formal settings.

The kind of English spoken in Ireland in the second half of the 20th century is no more "legitimate" than any other. Yes, people fear change, and some words can seem annoying, but that's just a fact of life. Things change. If one's sense of identity is so wrapped up in one small element of culture, then they probably need to broaden their cultural engagement a little bit.

Manach · 15-02-2021 3:57pm

As someone who actually has done Sociolinguistics at that level, I have some agreement with the OP. While yes languages change and cross-pollinated words / phrases between differing languages or dialets of the same languges there is also the loss of lingustic heritage as local phrases and accents are marginalised. This leads to a loss of linguatic diversity which also has been raised as an issue at academic studies as local forms/usages are overtaken.
For instance there was a seminal paper about the dialect usage Martha's Vineyard and the consious effort by local long term residents to preserve their dialect pronuncation and use, being used as a marker of identity.

maestroamado · 15-02-2021 8:01pm

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Have you ever done any academic reading about sociolinguistics, OP? Languages are in a constant state of change and evolution.

Slang comes and goes. Dialects shift. Sometimes multiple languages meet and pidgin forms come to the fore, or get a strong enough foundation to become creole.

New concepts require new words, or the innovative use of established words. Some languages have Higher and Lower forms or registers which might be used in more formal or less formal settings.

The kind of English spoken in Ireland in the second half of the 20th century is no more "legitimate" than any other. Yes, people fear change, and some words can seem annoying, but that's just a fact of life. Things change. If one's sense of identity is so wrapped up in one small element of culture, then they probably need to broaden their cultural engagement a little bit.

Why are you afraid of change? i certainly am not.
I have noticed huge language changes and i think most have come through education.
I think the changes i am referring to have come mostly through the good influence Americian Companies here.
We speak English whether correct or not i do not care, i did not ever hear the two words i mention on British but i may have be wrong...

Mick Tator · 15-02-2021 8:46pm

maestroamado wrote: »

Why are you afraid of change? i certainly am not.
I have noticed huge language changes and i think most have come through education.
I think the changes i am referring to have come mostly through the good influence Americian Companies here.
We speak English whether correct or not i do not care, i did not ever hear the two words i mention on British but i may have be wrong...

Well I do care and I find it hard to see why you argue on foreign word importations and yet you can express yourself ungrammatically and with poor use of capitalisation.
I’ll step up to the plate (oops!) and admit I share the views of Manach to a certain extent. There is quite a difference between language change (shift in meaning or a corruption of the original word) and language change by importation of foreign words/phrases. After all, what is English but a mixture of several imported languages. It has been happening for centuries and is a reason why the French (Louis XIII, 1635) created the Academie Francaise to safeguard the language. Despite that, the French love their ‘parking’, ‘pressing’, ‘mailing’, ‘un Scotch’, etc., and are slow to dismiss them – the Academie fought and lost a long battle to have the import word ‘email’ banned and ‘couriel’ used in its stead. Anyway, most have French/Latin roots, Parking-> parc ->parricus.

Meaning change – e.g. ‘Silly’ in the 1400’s meant ‘happy’ or ‘blessed’ – as in ‘Silly art thou, Holy Virgin Mary’. That meaning has changed completely, as has more recently the meaning of the word ‘gay’.

Corruption change - ‘Piggyback’ has nothing to do with pigs but is a corruption of ‘pickaback’.

Canadian French is slower to evolve both in vocabulary and pronunciation – a car is often a ‘carosse’ (carriage} but when they have a puncture they say ‘J’ai un flat’ which is quicker/easier than ‘J’ai eu une crevaison de pneu’. It also is why Canadian French films are subtitled in French for French audiences.
As for your comment on 'keeping a bit of our identity', languages evolve, which is why I'm sure there are words as Gaelge for 'mainframe' and 'cloud computing'.

BonnieSituation · 15-02-2021 8:53pm

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Languages change, that's just the way it is. Some Americanisms such as Fall for Autumn are actually old English words that evolved over here but remained on the other side of the pond. Accents also stagnated in America, where ours evolved. I read a book by Bill Bryson about twenty years ago which went into this, David Crystal is another one who talks about it and, my favourite book on the English language is The adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg.

The global village is becoming more and more connected, therefore so will our accents and language used, particularly the Lingua Franca as it is most susceptible to outside influences. This though is not just true of English but other languages such as German, which has taken showman and handy from English and given them completely new meanings, French has turned the verbs parking and relooking into nouns.

This intrigues me.

A quick Google is showing nowt. What does it mean?

magicbastarder · 15-02-2021 9:34pm

Mick Tator wrote: »

As for your comment on 'keeping a bit of our identity', languages evolve, which is why I'm sure there are words as Gaelge for 'mainframe' and 'cloud computing'.

i remember being at a houseparty once where a few people were laughing that the irish for 'chimpanzee' is essentially the same word, but spelt in accordance with how that word would be spelt as gaeilge.
obviously unaware that the word originally came from a language local to where they come from - in many instances, it'd be ludicrous to make up a new word simply for the sake of it, you take the word as it is and import it from another language.

to be fair, i've picked a very straightforward example there.

Captain Havoc · 15-02-2021 9:34pm

BonnieSituation wrote: »

This intrigues me.

A quick Google is showing nowt. What does it mean?

I was thinking of showmaster, sorry.

BonnieSituation · 15-02-2021 9:41pm

Captain Havoc wrote: »

I was thinking of showmaster, sorry.

Thanks anyway for that. That's another one to add to the vocabulary.

How wonderfully German.

magicbastarder · 15-02-2021 9:41pm

what is it used for (i work for germans and have never heard it used)?

whisky_galore · 15-02-2021 9:44pm

maestroamado wrote: »

Why are you afraid of change? i certainly am not.
I have noticed huge language changes and i think most have come through education.
I think the changes i am referring to have come mostly through the good influence Americian Companies here.
We speak English whether correct or not i do not care, i did not ever hear the two words i mention on British but i may have be wrong...

Are you sure English is your first language?

BonnieSituation · 15-02-2021 9:48pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

what is it used for (i work for germans and have never heard it used)?

Compere/emcee/MC

magicbastarder · 15-02-2021 9:51pm

once phrase i hear germans using a lot, which may be a direct translation from german, is 'deep dive'; for a session where they examine a topic fully.

i hear/see 'prepone' being used very occasionally by indian colleagues; but i mean i'd hear it maybe once or twice a year.

Del.Monte · 15-02-2021 10:04pm

The media have a lot to answer for in relation to mucking up our language importing as they do all the latest buzz words from the US as they try to sound cool. Noostalk and Today FM in particular should be put on trial for crimes against the language.

Insect Overlord · 15-02-2021 10:47pm

maestroamado wrote: »

We speak English whether correct or not i do not care, i did not ever hear the two words i mention on British but i may have be wrong...

In that case, I suggest you put forward some more appropriate examples of unwelcome imports. Your rugby suggestion doesn't make much sense. Would you insist on saying fly-half or out-half? What happens in a play when the ball isn't first passed to the number 10? The player who gets the ball in the those situations, when it comes to analysis, can only be described as the first receiver. It's a literal term, and I can't see how it could be better described.

maestroamado · 16-02-2021 12:32am

Insect Overlord wrote: »

In that case, I suggest you put forward some more appropriate examples of unwelcome imports. Your rugby suggestion doesn't make much sense. Would you insist on saying fly-half or out-half? What happens in a play when the ball isn't first passed to the number 10? The player who gets the ball in the those situations, when it comes to analysis, can only be described as the first receiver. It's a literal term, and I can't see how it could be better described.

For me first receiver is an Americian term as is rookie, i lived there for a time. I think before these terms were introducer commentators used the actual players names, i do not watch analysis.

maestroamado · 16-02-2021 12:33am

whisky_galore wrote: »

Are you sure English is your first language?

Have another glass of moonshine...

dubhthach · 16-02-2021 1:38pm

maestroamado wrote: »

I have noticed in recent years that our language has become very Americian so i just thought i would bring it here as i prefer if we kept abit of our traditional identity.
I will give the few new recent examples i heard on tele recently i can think of off-hand, others may add more, two recent ones made me cringe, yesterday the rugby match i heard "first receiver" and a few weeks ago i heard on All Ireland final day "rookie" I think i am a person of the world but i do not want to feel like i am at a "ball game" I think tv and movie pretty well established.
Whats the view here?

I blame Dallas tbh

maestroamado · 16-02-2021 7:40pm

Del.Monte wrote: »

The media have a lot to answer for in relation to mucking up our language importing as they do all the latest buzz words from the US as they try to sound cool. Noostalk and Today FM in particular should be put on trial for crimes against the language.

That's interesting, i have sister who lives pretty close to SF.
A few years ago she was here and she was surprised to hear a word here she had just heard a few Months earlier in US. I cannot rembember word...

Donalde · 17-02-2021 12:59pm

We need to ramp up these new words and roll them out!
I wonder if another virus, or variant of the existing, might cause some disruption in the Global Village? Or is is it all done by TV?

maestroamado · 17-02-2021 4:41pm

Donalde wrote: »

We need to ramp up these new words and roll them out!
I wonder if another virus, or variant of the existing, might cause some disruption in the Global Village? Or is is it all done by TV?

There was talk sone years ago about us coming an Americian colony (51st state)
You may be right Donald could run here Aras Dunbeg, its a lovely spot...

notabogsnotion · 17-02-2021 4:54pm

The English have never heard of the word 'delph'.

Irish use 'press' instead of cupboard.

Loads of **** different.

Language evolves.

Language can be very representative of a culture e.g. Dia is Mhuire duit to say hello. Clearly religious.

I bought an Oxford dictionary which also included the etymology of the words.

riffmongous · 17-02-2021 8:02pm

maestroamado wrote: »

For me first receiver is an Americian term as is rookie, i lived there for a time. I think before these terms were introducer commentators used the actual players names, i do not watch analysis.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of 'wide receiver', because first receiver doesn't make much sense in an American Football context, as 99 times out of 100 there is no second receiver. It does in rugby though, in the back line typically the fly half is the first receiver, inside centre is the second and so on.

There is an ongoing thread on the rugby forum talking mentioning Ronan O Gara's analysis and how he uses 'insider' terms that a layperson wouldn't be familiar with it (-1 and -2 defender was the quote) and I wouldn't be surprised if first receiver actually is a rugby term

maestroamado · 17-02-2021 8:34pm

riffmongous wrote: »

Are you sure you aren't thinking of 'wide receiver', because first receiver doesn't make much sense in an American Football context, as 99 times out of 100 there is no second receiver. It does in rugby though, in the back line typically the fly half is the first receiver, inside centre is the second and so on.

There is an ongoing thread on the rugby forum talking mentioning Ronan O Gara's analysis and how he uses 'insider' terms that a layperson wouldn't be familiar with it (-1 and -2 defender was the quote) and I wouldn't be surprised if first receiver actually is a rugby term

I am actually talking of what was actually on commentery on rugby match, first receiver (ball passed from fly-half to first receiver)
I cannot remember the context of "rookie" comment but it was All Ireland final Dublin/Mayo i think but not sure, i just watch big games.
I am familar with term wide-receiver but did not hear it here in relation to our daily sport...
For me all of the Ronan terms are perfectly understand and my point i would rather fallow Ronan than what i heard recently.
I am very much in the minority here so i will adapt pretty easy or switch off...

dubhthach · 18-02-2021 11:06am

notabogsnotion wrote: »

Language can be very representative of a culture e.g. Dia is Mhuire duit to say hello. Clearly religious.

Goodbye == 'God be with you', clearly religious

maestroamado · 18-02-2021 12:40pm

dubhthach wrote: »

Goodbye == 'God be with you', clearly religious

Interesting i did not know that...

Tiredandcranky · 13-03-2021 10:01pm

Slightly off topic, but what about distinctly Irish words that are (more by older generation) put into English sentences.
Off the top of my head (I am completely guessing at spelling here)

He was very flaithuil with the money (..flamboyant reckless spending )

A seascar little man (neat, tidy, careful)

They were ullagoning (crying... annoying wailing sort of crying)

A grabhar sort of man (generous, well fed, happy, content)

I’ll cut a gowlog off the ditch (a forked piece of a branch)

Anyone got some others? I think they’re fascinating.

dubhthach · 14-03-2021 2:49pm

Tiredandcranky wrote: »

Slightly off topic, but what about distinctly Irish words that are (more by older generation) put into English sentences.
Off the top of my head (I am completely guessing at spelling here)

He was very flaithuil with the money (..flamboyant reckless spending )

A seascar little man (neat, tidy, careful)

They were ullagoning (crying... annoying wailing sort of crying)

A grabhar sort of man (generous, well fed, happy, content)

I’ll cut a gowlog off the ditch (a forked piece of a branch)

Anyone got some others? I think they’re fascinating.

"go way with your Plámas"
or
"you're some plámáser..."

pinkypinky · 14-03-2021 3:43pm

Ciotóg for left-handers

Jellybaby_1 · 14-03-2021 3:51pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

Ciotóg for left-handers

Always thought that was for people who use both right and left hands??

pinkypinky · 14-03-2021 6:39pm

I've never heard of it in that context.

https://www.teanglann.ie/en/eid/ciot%C3%B3g

El Tarangu · 14-03-2021 7:07pm

'Mar dhea' - as it were.

Joe Duffy is mad for dropping that one into conversation, mar dhea.

Jellybaby_1 · 14-03-2021 9:41pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

I've never heard of it in that context.

https://www.teanglann.ie/en/eid/ciot%C3%B3g

You know, I had it wrong, how I mixed it up with ambidextrous I'll never know!!

Yet another of my silver moments!

Tiredandcranky · 15-03-2021 2:08pm

El Tarangu wrote: »

'Mar dhea' - as it were.

Joe Duffy is mad for dropping that one into conversation, mar dhea.

I think I know the one you’re talking about but for me it has a different meaning. It’s kind of ‘as if’. The one I’m thinking of is pronounced murra- ya.

The money was only resting in his account, Mar dhea.
He was going to pay for it, he just forgot, Mar dhea.

Jellybaby_1 · 15-03-2021 10:32pm

Tiredandcranky wrote: »

I think I know the one you’re talking about but for me it has a different meaning. It’s kind of ‘as if’. The one I’m thinking of is pronounced murra- ya.

The money was only resting in his account, Mar dhea.
He was going to pay for it, he just forgot, Mar dhea.

My mother and aunts would say it like 'my-ah', which to them meant 'he will pay for it my ah (wink-wink) or (my eye). Such a memory.

Some people look at me strangely now when I say 'it's great gas'.

language

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