okay...I have a "dancas question" that i've been wondering about for awhile

It's about our word 'cuddle'...could it come to us from 'codail/codladh"?

probably not directly, but you never know...I'm also wondering if we didn't get 'coddle' from 'codail/codladh' and 'cuddle' from 'coddle'

does that make sense or have i talked myself in a circle?

Etymonline.com:

"cuddle
c.1520, probably a variant of obs. cull, coll "to embrace" (see collar), or perhaps M.E. *couthelen, from couth "known," hence "comfortable with." The word has a spotty early history, and it seems to have been a nursery word at first. "

"coddle
1598, "boil gently," probably from caudle "warm drink for invalids," from Anglo-Fr. caudel (c.1300), ult. from L. calidium "warm drink," neut. of calidus "hot," from calere "be warm" (see calorie). Verb meaning "treat tenderly" first recorded 1815 (in Jane Austen's "Emma").
"



In "codladh" you don’t hear the d, it’s pronounced /koL@/ (Munster, Connemara), /koLu/ (Donegal).

hm...cool, thanks

a chairde:

Of course, Irish is one of the key strands of the late developing hybrid tongue called English. My attitude towards the Anglo-cultural nationalists who deny this simple obvious fact is best summed up by the quote from the old Chicago ward heeler (e/ilitheoir) MIke Mc Donald, see below.




The Sanas (Irish Etymology) of Faro, Poker, and American Gambling “Slang” (1)


The Irish... gave the American langauge, indeed, very few new words; perhaps speakeasy, shillelah and smithereens exhaust the list.” H.L. Mencken, 1937.

A Dictionary of Hiberno-English,...corroborates the well-known but puzzling fact that so few Irish words have been absorbed into Standard English.” Terence Patrick Dolan, 1999

“There’s A Sucker (Sách úr) Born Every Minute,” Mike McDonald, 1839 - 1907 (2)


The Irish language was transformed by English cultural imperialism from the first literate vernacular of Europe in the 6th century into the secret "jargon of thieve’s and gamblers" in the 16th, and then into the countless anonymous Irish words and phrases in American Standard English, slang, and popular speech today.

The Irish language in America is a lost living tongue, hidden beneath quirky (corr-chaoí, odd-shaped) phonetic orthographic overcoats and mangled American pronunciations.

Irish words and phrases are scattered all across contemporary American language, regional and class dialects, colloquialism, slang, and specialized jargons like gambling, in the same way the Irish-Americans themselves have been scattered across the crossroads of North America for five hundred years.

(Message edited by dancas1 on June 12, 2005)

PS

You can also bet all your moolah, jack, spondulics, dough, and samollions on the massive Irish influence on American and English languages.

And if you are an irish Traveller, bet your "gored" too.

Or if you were born in 1850 bet your rhino.

The Anglo-American scholarly sóúil set are chomh bhodhar le slís... to the Irish language.

But whaddya expect from the typical "more English than the English" Ivy League educated sách úr?

(I know, I am a product of the Ivy League - in "recovery.")

The big "bodair an aicme án" of Harvard and Oxford rule the Anglo-American Academies with the Iron Rule of Anglo-American linguistics: The Irish language has had NO influence on American language, slang, or colloquialism.

That iron rule will soon melt like rancid butter in the heat of the ancient linguistic Teas of Irish.

pax

Teasbach

"That iron rule will soon melt like rancid butter in the heat of the ancient linguistic Teas of Irish."

and be blown to *smithereens*...(ye forgot that one...)

Terence Patrick Dolan, in his Dictionary of Hiberno English claims that smithereens and kabosh are not Irish.

He is an English professor at UCD.

When I suggested that glom, which is NY slang meaning to grab, might be derived from the Irish word gla/m I was laughed off the American Dialect Society website. They have a sarcastic motto...if any word is origin unknown they say it must be "Wolof or Irish." It is meant to be a joke, since the assumtpion is that there are no Wolof or Irish words in English and American speech.

I suggested ward "heeler" might be from e/ilitheoir and slugger might be from "slacaire" (a batter, a mauler) and brag from bre/ag and these etymologies were utterly dismissed in a blizzard of hostility on the ADS-LIst.

But what d'ye expect from a pig but a...grunt?

To think that ten million Irish people came to North America over 500 years -- at least 60% of whom were Irish speakers -- and left no lexical imprint on the vernacular is a counter-intuitive impossibility. But in American and English scholarly discourse and among ALL DICTIONARY EDITORS in 2005 it is the Iron Law of English linguistic neo-orthodoxy.

Again, most American dictionary editors are "more English than the English..."

So at this point all agree that every ethnic group in America has contributed to the hybrid vernacular tongue that created our culture but...the Irish.

Gaeilge dofheicthe agus balbh, covered over with a shroud of "whiteness."

And Anglo-Saxonist mallarkey.



(Message edited by dancas1 on June 13, 2005)

I dunnae...etymonline cites

smithereens Look up smithereens at Dictionary.com
"fragments," 1829, from Ir. smidirin, dim. of smiodar "fragment," perhaps with dim. ending as in Colleen.

but some of the words you are claiming as being from Irish are not known in Irish such as 'sach ur' for sucker! You should be able to show examples of the use of such expressions in Irish!

or at least common usage of a term/idiom in the 19th or early 20th century

He doesn't say definitely that smithereens is not Irish. He cites smidiriní as the Irish and cites the OED as saying it may have come from smithers meaning fragments. He then goes on to say that smithereens is the older usage and gives examples of how it is used. As for kybosh he says the same thing I have heard from other sources. The origin is doubtful and has been attributed to Turkish, Yiddish, Irish, etc.

a chairde:

i never argue with the anglo-saxon "sucker."

the irish american sa/ch u/r is fresh and new because he is born every minute.

the secret motto of the ny irish is po/g mo tho/in.

but, where can you find po/g mo tho/in written in irish in american literature or even 18th or 19th century irish literature?


you cannot find these words of the urban irish american saol luim and underworld published in the irish language.

there were no publications in irish in america except for brooklyn's an gaodhal (1882-1904.) and that did not represent the lingo of the poor and dispossessed of the streets and slums.

my uncles munika (name) was "dukie" because he made his living by "Tuargain" it out with people. you will not find Dukin' spelled Tuargain in american literature. though you might find it in irish. but then it's not dukin' it is tuargain, which is my point.

my grandfather's nickname was boliver. he was a very silent man. we didn't know the correct way to spell his moniker was balibhe. does that make boliver as balibhe an english word. or were all the irish balibhe in america?

my nickname was the glom, because i glommed my brother's stuff. I didn't know glom was an irish word spelled gla/m. does that make it english? Did it make me less of a glom. there is no record of glom spelled gla/m in american literaure. though there are plenty in irish.

when a slugger slugs a palooka is "slacaire" (a batter, a mauler, a puncher) irish or english? what if he socks him or pokes him in the lip? is that a "sac" (poke) or an english "sock?" or a "whallop" in the puss. & is that a "bhuaiul leadhb" or a wallop.

and is an american irish puss an irish pus or just some anglo-saxon cat's mouth?

i dunno. i better go balibhe, before i turn into an English sucker.


peace

dc



(Message edited by dancas1 on June 15, 2005)

A question...

If a chicken crosses the road and sees a car speeding towards him at 90 miles an hour and flees first is that chicken "teith ar cheann" or chicken friocadh sa/mh (fricasee)?

pax

dc

One other nagging question (and now I am not horsing around.)

A "nag" is American slang for a horse.

If "coiste se/ n-each" means "a coach and six horses" are those six animals called a horse or a "n-each?"

This question should nag all admirers of the nags and Irish.

The horsemen who drive the "coiste se/ n-each" are called FIR NA N-EACH.

Is that N-EACH a mere Anglo Saxon "nag" or an Irish "n-each" pronounced n-ag by two dollar piker (picear) punters like me?

Sorry to nag, but published sources of the caint of the daibhir whether it is Irish or Sicilian or African, or what has been labelled Thieve's Cant by the Anglo-American academic aicme a/n, are few and far between.

Most literature in history is written by and for the somhaoineach sóúil set & literary big "bodaire an aicme
án."

Read the Iceman Cometh. It is a secret bilingual play. Ya' tuig?

Pax

Giacomo the n-each

I do think there's far more Irish in American slang of the appropriate areas and eras - *however* I don't think that any phonetic similarity of itself indicates an etymological relationship. I'm positively certain that the same game could be played (perhaps even with the same words) using arabic or chinese...

sometimes a cigar (not 'sí garrai' - 'of the faerie garden' or 'tobacco' (considered magical for the effects of the nicotine)) is just a cigar (see how easy it was?)

my point is (i know i have one in here somewhere - ah, yes...) that gaeilge influence on american slang in areas and periods of heavy irish immigration is something too quickly dismissed and worthy of further study, but there needs to be some standard of proof beyond what is being worked with here for these words and phrases...

Irish may have had more of an effect than admitted on english in ireland to the 1600s, and on english in america from about 1700-1920, but american english culture has had a phenominal influence on everything from WWII on, as well as there being influence in irish (and english) from french and latin - and all share a common IndoEuropean root...so there is plenty of room for "cross pollenation" and "coincidence" in there...

The etymological proof should be common usage as carefully traced in thousands of Irish books, novels, newspaper stories, dictionaries, magazines, tracts, poems, vernacular pulp literature, plays, etc., etc. published and printed in the Irish language between 1600 --1920 -- as it is in English.

You and I know, there is no published record in Irish comparable to English and other European languages because of colonialism and the penal laws, which had a particularly strong and toxic cultural component.

There are relatively few Irish language books and almost no newspapers or magazines published in Ireland or anywhere elsein the period 1603-1923. The published record of the Irish language is slim indeed when compared to English, French, German, Italian and even smaller languages like Dutch or Danish.

It would be interesting to compile a complete list of all books, newspapers,and tracts/magazines published and printed in the Irish language in Ireland between 1603- 1923 and stack them up. Then pile all the books, newspapers, magazines/tracts, etc. in English and other European languages.



There lies the problem; one similar to other colonized languages.

So if meaning, phonology, semantics, oral history, and a pattern of common usuage of these phonetically spelled "slang" terms in the regional vernaculars of breac-Ghaeltacht areas in the diaspora, where large populations of native Irish speakers settled for hundreds of years -- like Brooklyn or New Orleans or London -- are not sufficient proof, then what is?

What is the standard required for an etymological proof with no large written record 1603 - 1923 comparable to most European languages? I would say it is precisely what I enumerated in the preceding paragraph. The Irish langauge is the hidden secret teas at the heart of American vernacular English. But it still only a single strand in the many stranded linguistic helix that is our speech today.

pax

I disagree that there is no etymological proof. Many of those coming to the US by the 19th and 20th centuries did not speak Irish...and most of those who did were committed to never uttering another word. One must prove that such a word or phrase was in use as slang *in english* *in Ireland* and was brought over by the immigrants.

Due to the hatred most had toward their own language, I do feel the assertion that no *new* gaelic-derived slang would have been added once in the new world is a fair one. Plenty of the ones you've suggested have to do with cowboys and livestock raising - find even a single instance where, in irish *or* english - that particular term was used in the same or similar context in irish livestock industry and you will have an argument that it came to english via irish.

I think you have a worth mission, and I have little doubt that there is more to turn up. but I don't think you have a high enough standard of proof before you declare somethign a match, which serves only to make your audience more incredulous when you do hit on something right...

Just because it sounds like a duck doesn't make it a duck...

and yes, the situation is quite unfair and searching for the evidence required is done in the dark with both hands tied behind your back, but lack of opportunity for evidence does not absolve the scholar of his duty to be bound by it...in other words, you can't lower the bar simply because little of the langauge is recorded during that critical time.

I would also look elsewhere for evidence...french sources, I feel, would be a good place to start. Did anybody not english visit ireland for purposes of documenting her people and customs in that time? I'm sure there is stuff to find out there...

You could also look at this

http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=140&products_id= 2720

quote:

Prós, filíocht, téacsanna creidimh, cáipéisí staire, aistriúcháin, etc.
Ábhar I gcló ó 1600 – 1882
Bunaithe ar 1.2 milliún líne de théacs reatha
7.25 milliún focal
705 téacs
600,00 foirm
Innéacs minicíochtaí
Innéacs droim ar ais
Áis sainchuartaithe
Innéacs nominum: 270,000 logainm agus daonainm

Contents

Prose, poetry, religious texts, historical documents, translations, etc,
Printed material from 1600 – 1882
Based on 1.2 million lines of running text
7.25 million words
Includes 705 texts
Over 600,000 formae
Index with frequencies
Reverse Index
Custom search facility
Index nominum: 270,000 place names and personal names

Not all dictionaries..

You'll find hundreds of examples of anglicized irish words in this dictionary of Newfoundland English:

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/dictionary/d1ction.html

Some examples:
kursheen from the irish croisín 'small cross...crutch.' A wooden stilt for a child

scrob from the irish scráib 'a scrape or scratch'

sleiveen from the irish slighbhín 'a schemer, a trickster'

slawmeen from the irish sláimín. 'Dirty, untidy person'

and on and on...

Newfoundland English being influenced by the English spoken in the SouthEast of Ireland (the areas of New Ross in Wexford,Waterford and Kilkenny!)..the accent there that I have heard sounds to me like the Wexford accent!Funny!

I think it's fair to say that english gets many words and phrases from irish - but *american english* gets them from *hibernoenglish* and not directly from irish...the same goes for aussienglish and canadian english and even british english (where applicable)...

in other words, english speaking irishmen brought those phrases with them in english, and the new users of it in their new homelands picked them up without realizing that the origins were in irish...

so all the 'link proving' must be done *before* the immigrant leaves the homeland, and not trying to second guess slang 6 or 8 thousand miles and 100 years later...

Antaine,
I am not sure I agree with your conclusion. While, it is probably true that a large percentage of English words of Irish origin were brought into the language before leaving Ireland, I don't think one can make the claim that ALL words entered the language this way. In the case of Newfoundland, the island was populated by the Irish before the famine and well before heavy immigration to the U.S.. In fact, the island is the only non-European country to have an Irish name "Talamh an Éisc". The Irish language here was a living multi-generational language.

excellent, although that is not the case in NYC and Texas and the places to which Dancas was referring in past posts.

I'm sure there are words and phrases that made the direct jump *in* the new world or Australia, but they would be more the exception than the rule.

Even something as well known as galore, I would venture to guess, was brought over in english rather than irish, although it is indisputably of irish origin...

Just so I don't confuse anyone, Newfoundland joined Canada as its 10th province in 1949. It was later renamed "Newfoundland and Labrador".

A chairde: go raibh maith agaibh.

These responses are so helpful. The more critical, the better!!! Very rushed comments (work calls)...

Canuck is on the moolah (moll o/ir or muil o/ir, depending on how much gold, hahaha.)

There were breac-Ghaeltachta scattered across the old New World over 500 years: from Eastern Canada and its islands to Maine to Brooklyn all the way south to Barbados and Monserrat... and from New Orleans to Chicago and Butte, Montana & west to San Francisco throughout 19th and 20th centuries.

In the neighborhood I was born in late 1940s there were THOUSANDS OF IRISH SPEAKERS RECORDED IN THE 1920 US CENSUS, which is the first time they asked the primary langauge in the household; & this is only northeast Brooklyn. In San Francisco's Mission district in 1920s, thousands...In Portland, Maine, and throughout New England thousands and thousands in neighborhoods and pockets all across northeast...in Wilkes Barre and Eastern Penn. and in Springfield, Ohio... In Chi-town ...all in 1920 census. The Nobel prize winning plays of Eugene O'Neill like Iceman Cometh and Anna Christy and Hughie and Long Day's Journey and Moon for Misbegotten, etc. are literally written in this vernacular in whole sections.

These words came from the Irish speech of Irish speakers primarily -- and secondarily from Hiberno English. The kids picked them up from their parents and stuck them into their vernacular working class "English" just like Jewish kids did with Yiddish words, Sicilian kids with Sicilian words, etc etc It is counter-intuitive to suggest anything else.

This is important because it places the Irish language in a cultural and historical context as one of the key strands forming American language and culture. It is a doorway into Irish for young people who think the Irish teanga is unimportant.

I am afraid I am rushed right now. More later.

I am very grateful for the help. Aonghus, go raibh maith agat.

Gotta' bogadh luath (bugaloo)...

Or as we said when I was a ponach (lad, aka "punk" -- see Dwelly)...

Gotta "Cheese!!!" (teigh as)

Forgive typos and illiterate punctuation....

Beannacht

d

The Jazz, Coose, Darb, & Loogin
In James T. Farrell's Gashouse McGinty, 1933




Write her a pome," said West Chicago McGee; they haw-hawed.

"Coose is darb,: McGinty said, roaring...

"Good morning, Simon...Say, listen to this loogin' here," Mac said to Simon Murray who had entered, smoking a cigar and wearing a panama.

"What's he doin,' tryin' to jazz another jane over the telephone? Christ sake, why doesn't he spend two dollars and find out what it's all about?" Murray said dryly. Mac laughed.

James T. Farrell, Gashouse McGinty, 1933, NY, p. 103

+++



"We confess our sins without hiding any mortal sins...and we say our prayers as the penance that the priest gives us."

"When you jazzed that skirt on the wire, and had a good time...is that a sin?"

"It's a good time...but, yes, it is."


Gashouse McGinty, p. 100


Coose
Cuas: anat. a cavity; an orifice, (fig. in old NYC and Chicago Irish-Amer. slang: a vagina. A very "rude," "vulgar" word in NYC Irish American vernacular.

Loogin
Leath-dhuine (pron. loogin): a half wit. Still heard, though rarer today in NYC and Chicago.,

Jazz
Teas (pron jass): heat, passion, excitement. This word is pronounced "jizz" or "giz" in Irish slang from Belfast, & Derry, to Cork. A mildly "rude" slang term

Jas'm, Gis'm, gissom
Teas ioma: This is very rude today in NY slang, though in 1880s-1920s it did not just mean "semen" but a lot of energy, spirit, passion, fervor, etc. It appears in Matthews Americanisms, 1848, first heard in northeast.



Darb: excellent, good.
This term was common from Boston to NYC to Chicago ca. 1880s-1950s; your guess is as good as mine.

Any ideas??


dc

>Leath-dhuine (pron. loogin):

it's pronounced /L'aγin'@/, not */lu:gin/.

I must say I'm skeptical about most of these. Coose/Cuas seems plausible bit I think the rest are doubtful, to say the least.

A chairde:

Scepticism is what started me on this project.

According to James T. Farrell, the vulgar slang term Cuas rudely birthed both teas and teas ioma. Though "Scoop" Gleeson, the baseball scribe who used the word "jazz" for the first time in the published history of the English language on March 3, 1913, in San Francisco, said it was the "gin-i-ker" that gave birth to "jazz." (S.F. Bulletin, Mar. 6, 1913, p 13) along with a little "enthusiasalum." Which showed that 27 year old Scoop had some linguistic Teas. Interestingly, the first use of the word "jazz" in a cartoon (April 19, 1913, SF Bulletin, p. 16) was a drawing of the Pacific Coast League's leading "slugger" Justin Fitzgerald as the personification of the word "jazz" with a lightning bolt (tine caor, gin-i-ker) for a body as he zapped around the base pads with "jazz."

However you slice and dice it, a slac is still "a bat" and a slacaire is "a batter, a mauler, a bruiser," and that is the definition of a slugger in baseball and boxing and in the wholly English dictionaries. So i'll keep sluggin' away. BY the way, these same holy English dictionaries say slug and slugger are of "unknown origin."

If that seems "phoney" to you remember that the sacrosanct OED states that phoney is most likely from the Irish word fáinne -- from the old "ring drop" scam.

Everyone knows a "Scam" is a deal that isn't "Square." It is crooked.

'S cam (é. ) Or just a phonological camóg?

I think... 'S cóir (é)... to say...

go raibh maith agaibh

& Good night Mrs. Kalabash wherever you are (Jimmy Durante.)

Pax

I always thought a slugger was a person who would "slug" somthing (the noun 'slugger' being derived from the verb being applied to humans) - taken from a punch machine turning out metal "slugs"...in other words, a brutal unstoppable pounding that punches a hole right through something...

you just described what I give guys in a fight

Anataine:

There are multiple "slugs" in American hybrid Vernacular English . Here are FOUR.

There is slug (1): slow moving animal, somewhat like a snail. 1408. slogge lazy person...Barnhart says it is from earlier "Middle English sluggard, lazy...from Scandanavian...( Barnhart, p. 1020.)

Slug (2), "A piece of lead for firing from a gun. 1602. Unknown origin." (ibid)

+++

Slug (n) (3) a hard blow...which Barnhart claims is "dialectical English (1830)...of uncertain origin... Slug (v) To hit hard, 1862...Slugger,n., a boxer, American English (1877.) The sense in baseball of a hard hitting batter is dated 1877 in American English... and that of a baseball bat (the most famous in history)...as in the Louisville Slugger, in 1946."

Now here are the Irish words that I believe provide the sanas of SLUG and SLUGGER :

O'Donaill p. 1106

Slac, v.t. & i. (vn slacadh m., gs. & pp. ~tha) Sp. Bat.
(Sp. means sport's usage.)

Slacaí, m. (gs. ~, pl. -aithe). Sp. A Batsman

Slacairt, f. (gs. -artha) Act of beating, battering.

Slacaire, g. id. pl. -rí, m., a batter, or slogger; a beater, a bruiser. (Dineen p. 1046)

Slacairt, f. beating, drubbing, battering, bruising, mauling.

And Dwelly (p., 849)

Slac, a mallet.

Slac v.a., Thrash, beat with a mallet. Cane, drub. Bang. Bruise.

Slacadh: s.m. Thrashing, act of thrashing or beating, as with a mallet. Bruising. Thrashing.

Slacair: beating, thrashing, mauling, bruising

Slacainn, same as above.


Finally there is "slug" (4.)

Slug. The meaning of drink, especially strong alcohol is first recorded in American English in 1756, according to Barnhart's Etymological Dictionary (p. 1020.) "The meaning to drink quickly, often in a single gulp does not enter American English until 1856 in the phrase "slug it up." (Between 1845-1856, 2 million Irish immigrants emigrated to North America.)

This slug is also Irish in its sanas (sain-fhios.)

Slog, -luig, pl. id., m. a sudden swallow, the amount of liquid taken at a swallow or gulp. See slogadh (Dineen, p. 1061

Slogadh, act of swallowing, gulping, engulfing, Tá slogadh ró-fhada aige, he takes too long a drink, he drinks too much.

Slogaire, g. id., pl. -rí, m. a swallower, a glutton. Also a common river name.

Slogaireacht: quaffing, drinking.

See also Dwelly and O'Donaill, et al.

So while I "slug" (3) away at this project I believe that it is not moll labharthachta (mullarkey) to say the Irish language has had an enormous influence on both the American and English langauges and that it deserves the concerted efforts of Irish scholars far more qualified than myself. I am only qualified because I am an aging native speaker of the old Brooklyn-NY-Irish working class Vernacular Dialect, which is itself unfairly called the "old slang of the Gangs of NY."

It is certain the Irish language establishment will dismiss my thesis of a massive Irish language influence on Vernacular American "English" with the same uí bhfolaíocht án (hi'falut'in) orthodox zeal that has repelled so many young Irish and Irish-American young people from the power and beauty of the ancient Irish language.

It is also certain they will be joined by their equally hidebound cronies (comh-róghna, fellow favorites or mutual "sweethearts") in the even more powerful and orthodox English cultural-nationalist language establishment.

I am deeply grateful to Daltai for at least giving the thesis: "the Irish were NOT bailbhe in North America from 1500-2000," a polite critical and very helpful hearing.

+++

The Newfoundland dictionary that Canuck referenced is one the keys to the great cultural secret of the 21st century.

In it a "beel" or beal" is defined as "the mouth of a river. From béal, of course.

NYC was "the great ford or crossing at the mouth of a great river" : A/th be/il, which became "apple" in the cab (mouth) of millions.

NYC was also called the "Big Onion" (anonn): the "Great Beyond" for the three million Irish immigrants who entered the Port of NY 1825-1929.

+++


My grandfather, who was nicknamed "bailbhe," was like the palooka played by John Wayne in John Ford's film the "Quiet Man," -- and a "slacaire" too. He was welterweight champion of the US Army in 1918. A slacaire like my Uncle "Dukie" (Tuarga.) Fighing, with or without gloves, ran in my family. And was sometimes a characteristic of working class Irish Americans, as well...unfortunately one over emphasized by Hollywood in movies like Million Dollar Baby and Cinderella Man.

We were working-class immigrant sluggers who spoke the first literate vernacular in Europe after Latin and Greek.

Mo cuisle, foirfe.

Teanga naomh.

Pax