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Mala or Marla!!!

  • 29-09-2008 2:55pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 305 ✭✭NAGGIE03


    Hi Not sure if this is the right forum but sure ill give it a go!!

    Ya know that stuff that we used to play with in primary school,the plastercine stuff that we would make worms and snails out of and always ended up brown by then end of the day!!!
    Well was it called MALA or MARLA!!!!
    Big debate going on here bout it!!!
    Cheers!!:D


«13

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 15,094 ✭✭✭✭javaboy


    Mala definitely.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭20goto10


    Mala (pronounced Maula). And its plasticine not plastercine :-D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 36,634 ✭✭✭✭Ruu_Old


    Mala (pronounced 'maw-la').


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,094 ✭✭✭✭javaboy


    Ruu wrote: »
    Mala (pronounced 'maw-la').

    We should really Irish it up with a fada. Mála ftw!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 36,634 ✭✭✭✭Ruu_Old


    Maith an fear, as my primary school teacher used to say. :D


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,126 ✭✭✭✭calex71


    i wonder how many kids would know what that is these days ?
    do they still call it mala in schools now?


  • Registered Users Posts: 305 ✭✭NAGGIE03


    Thanks!!! I Knew it!! i was saying Mala and two others said MARLA!!!
    Thought i was losing it!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18 lynnog81


    Oh I am one of the two people who said it was Marla, majority rules i suppose :eek:


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,626 ✭✭✭Stargal


    Mala ftw :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 372 ✭✭miles teg


    always said mala in my school but technically the word actually is marla


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  • Registered Users Posts: 19 angelika


    From here http://www.irishdictionary.ie/dictionary

    >>plasticine<<
    TRANSLATION:
    plasticine = n marla m4


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,612 ✭✭✭bullets


    MARLA it to me was always pronounced MARLA with the "R"
    to me.

    I remember getting white flat cardboard packets of it
    with different colours of strips back in the 80's
    that always ended up a kinda multi coloured brownish or
    purple colour when all mashed up together, and it always
    went hard.

    Growing up in Primary school the Teachers managed to get
    bricks of plasticine of one colour which was slightly harder than what we called Marla.

    Roll on a decade or two and you hear of this thing
    called play dough which was no comparassion and could
    be made by any house wife with flour lots of salt and food colouring by boiling in a sauspan.

    for the mmore mature you could buy model clay in Easons that was like Marla with the added
    advantage of being able to cook it in the oven to may clay

    ~B


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,004 ✭✭✭Ann22


    I called it mala-pronounced 'mawla' too. On first day at school my teacher wrote my name on a piece of card and gave me a ball of it. I used to either make a snail,a bird's nest with eggs in or a snake. I'm quite deadly with it now, can make quite impressive faces like those on Mt Rushmore. The pound shops usually have it. Playdough isn't near as good.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,008 ✭✭✭✭tk123


    God Ann22's post has brought up a repressed memory - we were given a ball of it in school and the teacher wrote words up on the board and we had to make them with the marla - what was the point in that when you could make something cool?! This is when 5 year old TK realised school was crap!


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,371 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    marla. it must have been a department directive for junior infants to play with marla for a certain amount of time per day:pac:

    if we were good we got to choose a lump out of a biscuit tin and maybe got about 15 minutes to play with it. most of it was green and there were a few coveted lumps of red and blue.... the simple pleasures...


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,272 ✭✭✭Deedsie


    Its Márla. There was an argument in a pub at home when some gob ****e decided to reminisce about playing with playdoh. An Irish man calling it playdoh. Needless to say the lad was ridiculed for the night.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 994 ✭✭✭mental07


    I always called it 'maw-la' too. As did my teacher, but she spelt it 'marla', which used to confuse me greatly...


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,860 ✭✭✭Rosita


    NAGGIE03 wrote: »
    Hi Not sure if this is the right forum but sure ill give it a go!!

    Ya know that stuff that we used to play with in primary school,the plastercine stuff that we would make worms and snails out of and always ended up brown by then end of the day!!!
    Well was it called MALA or MARLA!!!!
    Big debate going on here bout it!!!
    Cheers!!:D


    There is no correct answer to this. It depends on the dialect of Irish how many words are pronounced.

    For example, 'Cnoc' will be pronounced 'kunuk' by a Munster speaker and 'cruk' by a Connacht/Ulster speaker. Both are equally acceptable as there is no standard spoken Irish, only a written standard which would not accept anything other than the standard spelling of the word as 'correct'. There are countless examples of this and presumably 'marla' is just another.

    I think 'mawla' tends to be the Munster version and perhaps 'marla' elsewhere. But there is not correct or incorrect version and both claims are equally legitimate. (There is no fada in the word by the way)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,944 ✭✭✭✭ Cassidy Jealous Aerosol


    We used to call it márla back in the day too. Great stuff to play with.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,442 ✭✭✭Firetrap


    God, this brings back memories. We called it Márla in school. Isn't Mála the Irish for bag? The amazing thing about it was that it always turned a dull greeny grey colour, no matter what colours were used.

    This was standard baby infants fare, along with those chubby crayons that always had black bits stuck to them.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,612 ✭✭✭bullets


    While were mentioning baby infants etc.............
    Do people remember Unit Cubes!

    ~B


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,573 ✭✭✭lord lucan


    didn't bosco have 'magic' mala?:D


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,371 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    bullets wrote: »
    While were mentioning baby infants etc.............
    Do people remember Unit Cubes!

    ~B

    now there's a blast from the past!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 994 ✭✭✭mental07


    now there's a blast from the past!
    Not to mention the abacus!
    linkage


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,371 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    i can't say i've ever had a use for crepe paper either outside junior infants. :pac: I remember making hundreds of little balls of crepe paper to glue onto cardboard cutouts of chickens for easter. it must have kept us busy for hours


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,079 ✭✭✭shoelaceface


    mala.... the nicest smell in the world...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,239 ✭✭✭✭WindSock


    One kid in my class used to mix all the colours up to make it brown then stab it with his pencil and call it his pooooo which he'd chase us around the classroom with.


  • Registered Users Posts: 305 ✭✭NAGGIE03


    what bout stikle bricks and straws! They were deadly!


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,216 ✭✭✭✭monkeyfudge


    Yep... always loved them.

    sticklebricks.jpg


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  • Registered Users Posts: 14,008 ✭✭✭✭tk123


    we didn't have new-age sticklebricks - it was staws, unit cubes, marla/mala, abacus and treads& spools.


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