Beagán gramadaí

Gumbi wrote: »

Bean, being feminine, would lenite fuinnúil.

I'll answer that the long way around.

Murphy is the father's surname, so Miss Murphy is in fact Murphy's daughter, which is the actual meaning of the Irish version.

Murphy then is Ó Murchú; Murphy's (genitive case) is Uí Mhurchú, and so Murphy's daughter - Miss Murhpy - is Iníon Uí Mhurchú.

I hope that clears the matter up.

Oh, and btw, the form Ní is actually an abreviation of Iníon Uí!

In this day and age, of course, where plenty of women take their mother's surname, particularly where the mother is unmarried, you could of course argue that they should go with Iníon Ní Mhurchú!

I suppose they are both correct, but I don't think anyone would write X Iníon Uí Y as their name - inthe modern age, it would be seen as more of a description than a name as such. But there's nothing to stop you doing so.

In school though, you might hear a teacher ironically and over-formally calling a pupil A Iníon Uí Mhurchú, to catch her attention for instance, but without the first name. Like if they caught her texting on her phone -

A Iníon Uí Mhurchú, ar mhaith leat an chéad abairt eile a léamh anois?

Cue, a flustered look at a book on her desk open on the wrong page ...