Words the older generation use.

dlofnep · 19-11-2011 4:39pm #1

I noticed a huge difference in the type of Lingo my grandparents use(d) compared to the lingo around today. A lot of these are taken directly from Irish and used in an English sentence.

My grandmother is a good example of this. If she saw a woman of poor character, she'd refer to her as a gadhar. When I was driving her to see her father's grave in Hugginstown, she made sure to call the backroads as boreens (bóithrín). Even the way she pronounced Bally (in terms of anglecized names for towns), she pronounced it 'Balla' opposed to the commonly used 'Bally' today.

A few others stand-out - she always refers to shady characters as a slíbhín. I find that these terms are not to be heard in the newer generation of Irish people.

Any other terms/words people can think of that the older generation tend to use, oppose to the newer?

Enkidu · 19-11-2011 5:58pm

Well my parents always say "wee gasur/gasoon" for any toddler boy.

deise go deo · 19-11-2011 6:06pm

My Grandmother would always call a snail a shellicky-booky.

dlofnep · 19-11-2011 6:35pm

deise go deo wrote: »

My Grandmother would always call a snail a shellicky-booky.

So did I as a kid

We even had a song for it. Is it derived from Gaeilge though? Snail is seilide as Gaeilge.

deirdremf · 19-11-2011 8:20pm

dlofnep wrote: »

Even the way she pronounced Bally (in terms of anglecized names for towns), she pronounced it 'Balla' opposed to the commonly used 'Bally' today.

When they were standardising the English spelling of placenames in Ireland in the 19th century, they used the letter "y" to represent a "neutral" vowel, the one we often represent by the letters "uh" when trying to write English phonetically.
But English speakers in the 19th century colonial Administration (many many of them came over from England to work in the civil service and the courts service here in the 1800s) didn't realise what the "y" stood for, and pronounced it "ee".
What you say about your grandmother is true though - if you have ever heard Ian Paisley speaking, you'll probably have heard him talk about "Ballamena".

Micilin Muc · 19-11-2011 8:47pm

I regulary hear 'flaithiúil' being used. And gombeen!

AnamGlas · 20-11-2011 12:25am

"ín" seems to be blended in a bit, boyín/girlín etc.

whatthefeck · 20-11-2011 5:38pm

The little "scut"
Very derogatory term used for a bold child/boy

dlofnep · 20-11-2011 5:56pm

whatthefeck wrote: »

The little "scut"
Very derogatory term used for a bold child/boy

What Irish word is Scut derived from?

whatthefeck · 20-11-2011 6:02pm

AnamGlas · 20-11-2011 7:00pm

whatthefeck wrote: »

??

The topic is Irish words that the older generation use. If there's an Irish base for "scut", then fair enough.

Not exclusive to the older generation, but gabhal/gowl is frequent enough.

Su Campu · 20-11-2011 8:54pm

It would appear "scut" is short for the word "scutter".....

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scut

In certain parts of Ireland the word scut was used to tell off their children. Like feck is the softer version of ****. Scut would have been used in this way as it was the softer version of ****e. Being a lad from the West of Ireland this word was bandied about in my area quite a bit.

Scut would have been shortened from scutter which as any farmer will tell you is not a pretty sight out the backside of an afflicted cow (terribly bad liquid diarrhoea). So when your ma was saying 'you're some scut,' 'you little scut,' or 'come here you scut ya,' she was calling you a **** or a ****e but in the nice clean way. Not swearing at all was she!

Also is you were on the town for a night out and say, the food you ate turned out to be bad, you might find yourself sitting on the loo for a few days after evacuating your bowels at a tremendous rate you would have a 'dose of the scuts.'

If someone is talking **** or ****e in certain parts of Ireland they could be said to be 'talking pure scutter.'

You're some scut.

Come here you scut ya.

You little scut.

He has a dose of the scuts.

He's talking pure scutter.

byhookorbycrook · 20-11-2011 9:04pm

amadán/oinseach for an eejit. morry ya -pretending - mar dhea
tough as taw hale in from the Irish for the honeysuckle
whisky of course is from Irish
ciotóg for a left handed person.

whatthefeck · 20-11-2011 10:32pm

Sorry I am not sure how to spell these.

Cish - small bridge
Ag bohantiocht - wandering / gone walk about

pog it · 22-11-2011 11:39am

whatthefeck wrote: »

Sorry I am not sure how to spell these.

Cish - small bridge
Ag bohantiocht - wandering / gone walk about

Gorgeous!
I was watching TG4 the other night. The young sean nós singer Nell Ní Chróinín was presenting a programme about a well known singer from her family, think it was a grand-aunt of hers, and the word 'gliodar(n)ach' came up for 'light-hearted'. The old woman who used this word said she didn't think it was a word the younger generation had.

I used to hear 'Smithereens' a lot but I think it's used less and less all the time.

An gal gréine · 22-11-2011 8:17pm

I've heard it claimed that the Hiberno-English phrase that many of us use: "it's smashin" derives from "is maith sin".
Definitely from Gaelic is 'slogan', from 'slua-ghairm' which is another term for 'rosc catha' or war-cry.

Rabid50 · 22-11-2011 8:26pm

From rabid50. My mother used the word clute for a cleaning cloth, but that is archaic English and still in the Oxford dictionary.

Gaeilge72 · 05-12-2011 3:26pm

Meas (respect) is another word commonly heard; "I wouldn't have any meas in him". Heard a lot around Cork / Waterford anyway. Anyone else heard this much?

dlofnep · 05-12-2011 3:29pm

Gaeilge72 wrote: »

Meas (respect) is another word commonly heard; "I wouldn't have any meas in him". Heard a lot around Cork / Waterford anyway. Anyone else heard this much?

Not off the top of my head, I'm from Waterford.

A more modernly used one - Slug (as in a slug of a pint), which is derived from slog (swallow).

Gaeilge72 · 05-12-2011 3:34pm

dlofnep wrote: »

Not off the top of my head, I'm from Waterford.

A more modernly used one - Slug (as in a slug of a pint), which is derived from slog (swallow).

I never thought of that one!

odds_on · 06-12-2011 12:21pm

My mother used to refer to pigs' feet as pigs' trotters or more frequently as cruibins but she never knew any Irish.

youcancallmeal · 06-12-2011 12:27pm

Anyone ever heard of a hill being referred to as a Breagh (I'm sure thats not spelt right?)

Dun · 06-12-2011 1:56pm

Yeah, brae would get used up around Donegal a bit - it's an archaic English word though: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=brae

dambarude · 07-12-2011 12:43am

We have loads of them in our everyday speech that we picked up from grandparents. We don't live in a Gaeltacht area, and none of our immediate grandparents/great grandparents did. We're not very far removed geographically from Connemara though.

Off the top of my head, the words we'd use commonly are:
gluggers (glugair)- bad eggs
cipíns - small sticks for starting a fire, kindling
"That'll take the machnas out of him" - that'll calm him down a bit
boreens - as used by many people
mar dhea - as byhookorbycrook pointed out
geansaí - my grandmother never called it a jumper
Go mbeirimid beo ar an am seo aris - my grandmother was forever saying
poirthín ? - I'm not sure of this, maybe somebody here could enlighten me. Does it mean small egg? It's the word we'd use for baby potatoes!

What's funny is these are the only words we'd have for these things! We'd know these things in Irish before in English.

There are more but I can't think of them now.

dlofnep · 07-12-2011 1:35am

Not sure - Prátaí is potatoes, so maybe prátín?

An gal gréine · 07-12-2011 3:09pm

Póiríní is in use for small potatoes.

P. Breathnach · 08-12-2011 12:48pm

dambarude wrote: »

...
geansaí - my grandmother never called it a jumper...

That is in fact an English loan-word: from Guernsey shirt to gansey to geansaí.

We never Gaelicised the rather similar word jersey. I don't think it was a matter of sartorial preference, but because it did not sit so comfortably with the Irish phonic system.

teileann · 08-12-2011 5:04pm

Yes, I have a friend from Clonakilty and she uses it all the time.
"He has no meas on it". Ffor example when referring to a teenager not appreciating something that was bought for him.

deirdremf · 09-12-2011 8:14pm

teileann wrote: »

Yes, I have a friend from Clonakilty and she uses it all the time.
"He has no meas on it". Ffor example when referring to a teenager not appreciating something that was bought for him.

Yes, it sounds very much a Cork thing to my ear. I went out with someone once who used it a lot.

deirdremf · 09-12-2011 8:20pm

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That is in fact an English loan-word: from Guernsey shirt to gansey to geansaí.

We never Gaelicised the rather similar word jersey. I don't think it was a matter of sartorial preference, but because it did not sit so comfortably with the Irish phonic system.

Possibly so, but isn't it interesting that two of the Channel Islands gave Irish and English words for the same thing?
Does anyone know how whether knitting came to Ireland from that part of the world?
Also, our word cniotáil is obviously the same word as knit in English (which is also used in the sense of broken bones mending).
Interestingly, Spanish doesn't have a specific word for knitting: it uses the word tejer which is the same word as they use for weaving.
Finally, ganzee is also used in the Carribean for a (much lighter) sort of garment!

An gal gréine · 10-12-2011 5:26pm

"I'll see you back" used be widely said for "I'll see you again"...ón Ghaeilge ar ndóighe...tchfidh mé ar ais tú

deise go deo · 14-12-2011 3:29pm

dlofnep wrote: »

Not off the top of my head, I'm from Waterford.

Meas is a fairly common word in West Waterford.

uch · 15-12-2011 4:08pm

Fuist (pron: whisht) Be Quiet!

muineachan · 15-12-2011 4:52pm

Older people in my family say Crater a lot from Creatúr meaning 'poor' like an ill person 'ah the creatúr, hope she gets better'

I also hear Luder a lot from luderachán (spelling?) meaning idiot much like amadán.

To be honest with you I would use the above but I never hear them up in Dublin, and they seem to be more common in the older people.

Enkidu · 15-12-2011 5:56pm

uch wrote: »

Fuist (pron: whisht) Be Quiet!

No way! That's shocking! There really is more Irish in our English than you'd think.

dlofnep · 15-12-2011 6:27pm

uch wrote: »

Fuist (pron: whisht) Be Quiet!

My grandparents and uncles/aunts always use whisht. Never knew it derived from Irish, but figured it must have!

P. Breathnach · 15-12-2011 7:06pm

Enkidu wrote: »

... There really is more Irish in our English than you'd think.

As I am sure you recognise, the use of Irish syntax in Hiberno-English is more significant.

whatthefeck · 16-12-2011 6:36pm

Spailpín = Migrant worker

When we went to visit our relatives during the summer as a child I can remember my uncle saying, Oh the Spailpíns have landed.

LimeFruitGum · 23-12-2011 3:20pm

Oinseach is a word my father would use for a female eejit, but other than that, he wouldn't know any Irish at all.

A lot of the words mentioned already like Cratur, cipíns and boreens, were in common use when I was growing up. One example that comes to mind is "bould banbh", which was what my nan would call a cheeky/naughty child (or indeed animal

)
Anyway, a piglet was always called a banbh and would never be called by its English name.

SisterAnn · 23-12-2011 3:47pm

I've heard talk among older folks of 'the gatch of him', meaning his carry-on or antics. Derived from 'geaitsí' no?

ardri12345 · 06-01-2012 1:16pm

my mother would have used words like saying someone was full of taspie (meaning in high spirits,)when visiting people she would say she was scroitking,if some thing broke it was in pure bruis,she would have no mass (respect) on me if i did not give the cattle a "tisk kaan" of nuts.(ps.i have wrote the words as they sounded to my ear)

Jelly2 · 06-01-2012 1:20pm

Gaeilge72 wrote: »

Meas (respect) is another word commonly heard; "I wouldn't have any meas in him". Heard a lot around Cork / Waterford anyway. Anyone else heard this much?

I'm from Wexford (south-west), and we use this regularly. But we say 'meas on' as in 'She had no meas on it.' Lovely colloquialism I think.

Gaeilge72 · 13-01-2012 9:43pm

Jelly2 wrote: »

I'm from Wexford (south-west), and we use this regularly. But we say 'meas on' as in 'She had no meas on it.' Lovely colloquialism I think.

I agree, it's quite nice.

Tigerandahalf · 13-02-2012 2:08am

My mother would often say this, as in...'you have no means on anything'. She would also refer to some people (not the nice kind) as a 'bacach'. Bacach means lame so I can only presume that people who were born with a disability were seen as being somehow cursed or bad luck in times long ago. Farmers would often call a calf's hoofs when a cow is calving 'crúbíns'. 'Banbh' would also be used to describe a piglet. I hear many of these. 'Bóithrín' would also be often used. I think you generally find sayings like these in rural Ireland, often amongst people who wouldn't be speaking with many others in their working lives.

Jelly2 · 13-02-2012 9:21am

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

My mother would often say this, as in...'you have no means on anything'. She would also refer to some people (not the nice kind) as a 'bacach'. Bacach means lame so I can only presume that people who were born with a disability were seen as being somehow cursed or bad luck in times long ago. Farmers would often call a calf's hoofs when a cow is calving 'crúbíns'. 'Banbh' would also be used to describe a piglet. I hear many of these. 'Bóithrín' would also be often used. I think you generally find sayings like these in rural Ireland, often amongst people who wouldn't be speaking with many others in their working lives.

Actually, I think that 'bacach' was used to refer to wandering poor, who used to beg at houses mostly, and were not of the nice kind (ie the deserving poor), but were thought to be a bit rogueish because of thievery etc. It was sometimes anglicised as 'bocough'. This would make sense, if your mother was using it pejoratively (no offence!).

An gal gréine · 13-02-2012 2:13pm

I dont think the lame were regarded unkindly. The Ó Dónaill dictionary has beggar as it's second meaning for bacach and it's third meaning is " mean person, sponger" and finally "dispicable person".

Words the older generation use.

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