Could someone explain to me what the difference in usage is between 'Garda' and 'Gardai'?

Thanks,

Gardai is the plural!

BBC commentators based in London never use it!

Thanks.

By the way, what is the correct spelling for a single garda officer? Is it Garde?

Garda

"garda" is a noun in the Irish language. Like all nouns, it has different cases:

nominative singular: garda
nominative plural: gardaí

genetive singular: garda
genetive plural: gardaí

It's masculine.

"garda" is the Irish word for "guard", and is the name by which we refer to a "police officer" here in Ireland.

Sample usage:

Tháinig cúig gharda isteach sa teach.
Bhí gardaí ag fanacht ag cúl an tí leis na fir.
Níor thaitin sé leis nuair a chic na gardaí an doras síos.

**

But when people are speaking English here, a lot of them still use the Irish word "garda". When speaking English, the plural of "garda" is "garda" ( Just think "I saw five sheep" -- the plural of "sheep" is "sheep" ).

The most likely reason this came about is that Garda cars have "GARDA" written across them, so when people are doing something illegal and one of these cars come along, the first word that comes into someone's head is "GARDA". So when they're talking to people afterwards, it's like "Yeah we had the steering lock broken and all, then the Garda came."

It is slightly more complicated than that.

The name of the force is "An Garda Síochana" - The peace Guard. http://www.garda.ie

In both English and Irish, Garda/Guard can refer either to a member of the force, or to the force as a whole.

>>But when people are speaking English here, a lot of them still use the Irish word "garda". When speaking English, the plural of "garda" is "garda" ( Just think "I saw five sheep" -- the plural of "sheep" is "sheep" ).

This is so counter-intuitive (plural in English is expressed by adding "s", except with a few names) that it cannot be an acceptable explanation.

For the record : in English you say "the police are..." (at least part of the explanation lies right there - Aonghus's explanation can be added to the argument)

but that is how it is with English Speakers
the spoken language has it own set of rules that may be different than the written or formal. FISH---pl FISH but to express a whole lot of fish, just unpack your adjectives. hey all have a Happy Weekend

Fishes. =)

Fishes, deers, sheeps... :)

goose -> geese
fish -> feesh

>>the spoken language has it own set of rules that may be different than the written or formal.

I was talking of informal speech. (But there are no different "sets of rules" between written and oral language)

>>but that is how it is with English Speakers

I never said otherwise. I said that the arguments proposed by Fear-na-mbróg were irrelevent considering how the English language functions.

quote:

I never said otherwise. I said that the arguments proposed by Fear-na-mbróg were irrelevent considering how the English language functions.

There's a four-legged mammal that lives in fields in Ireland and eats grass all day. Its torso is covered in wool. We call this animal a "sheep". When we see mutiple specimens, we refer to them in the plural as "sheep" and not as "sheeps".

When people are speaking English, you won't hear them say "five gardas" or "five gardaí", they'll simply say "five garda". Fact.

I would beg to differ with you on that on Max. where I am from, what you say when the police arrive " yo 5-0 here boost-bounce-jet G2g" ( if police are around you should not be)
but I would write "the police are here." Damm is that cultural, dialect or laziness. IMHO in my socio-economic group speaking and written language do ascribe to two different sets or "rules" this is not an arguement but an opinion, I am sure more learned people can point out the faults in that opine but like i said unpack your adjectives (1970s schoolhouse rock) .02$

Fear_na_mbróg,

please, do not quote me if you haven't even tried to understand what I have written...

I agree with the fact(s) (how coul I not), but I don't agree with your explanation.

"multiple specimens" (eg plural) is express in English by adding "s". Any new coined noun will follow the "rule". Unless... ideed :
1/ the nouns are not new-coined but already exist in another language (like latin nouns : locus > loci)
2/ the nouns refer to an entity which is plural in itself (police).

In this case, "garda" belongs to the second category.
"garda" is not the plural of "garda", it is what Aonghus said:
>>In both English and Irish, Garda/Guard can refer either to a member of the force, or to the force as a whole.
(just like "police" refers to the force as a whole)

The fact that you say "three sheep", "three deer" or "three fish" is absolutely irrelevent in this very instance. It is an oversimplification to something more complexe than it first appears.

I thought prescriptivism was a thing of the past in linguistics, Max. Aren't you guys supposed to accept what native speakers say as data, and deal with it, not tell them how to speak? FNB just said flat out "When people are speaking English, you won't hear them say "five gardas" or "five gardaí", they'll simply say "five garda". Fact." Why can't you accept that datum and work with it as a scientist? Crois-tu qu'il te ment?

(Message edited by dennis on June 25, 2005)

Dennis, I feel strange to have to quote myself :

>>I agree with the fact(s) (how coul I not), but I don't agree with your explanation.

Us linguists of a (maybe not so) modern era, refuse proscriptivism and accept the data as they are and try to explain them the best we can.

FNB did not just tell the facts, he gave an explanation, the explanation being :
>>( Just think "I saw five sheep" -- the plural of "sheep" is "sheep" ). (Plus what follows)

(such a comparison is an explanation in itself)

I have already told why the explanation was irrelevent, and how the fact could be explained.

I stand corrected, Max, and guilty of not reading you carefully. At the risk of getting tangled up again, I see that Dan mentioned "police" which can be conceptually singular in reference to the institution (although it's always a grammatical plural; but consider the confusion within Engish between British "the government are" and American "the government is") or conceptually plural ("the police [i.e. five policemen] were there already"). Might that condition the similar invariant use of "garda" in an English sentence? But I'm sure there are other instances of English using a foreign word invariantly as singular and plural. The only one that springs to mind at the moment is "mujahedeen", properly a plural but used as either singular or plural. I'll have to think of others!

>>properly a plural but used as either singular or plural.

But garda is singular in Irish.

The difference has its importance here:

You can add "s" to any singular noun to make it plural, but you can't "take it out" if you can't see it, just like in "mujahedeen".

We have the same in French with paparazzo:
we borrowed the plural "paparazzi", and as a consequence, the singular is also "paparazzi".

>>Might that condition the similar invariant use of "garda" in an English sentence?

I can't answer the question. But I guess we'll learn a great deal if we start searching towards conceptualization.
I could also add that it seams to me that in English, plural can be conceptual without being grammatical (as opposed to French where plural is always conceptual and grammatical) (eg "the police are", etc. : in French the noun has to be in its plural form for the verb to be in its plural form too, which means that a noun conceptualized as a plural always shows the mark of the plural)

Max, you might want to have a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plural#Irregular_plurals_of_foreign_origin

with special attention to unmarked plurals of foreign words, such as "five samurai" and "five marae". Same as "five garda", do you think?

A Fhear na mBróg,

Irish "tá na Gardaí ag teacht"
English "the Guards are coming"

I never heard anyone say " the Garda are coming"

Paul

quote:

I never heard anyone say " the Garda are coming"

Nor I.

In Dublin, that would be rendered as:

The Garda's coming.

This is because of the reason that Aonghus pointed out earlier, ie. the word "garda" is referring collectively to the entire police force as a whole.

BUT...

We can also use the word "garda" to refer to one individual member of the force. Even in such cases, you'll hear people say the following in Dublin:

I hear John's gaf* got raided the other night.
No way! Really?!
Yeah, Garda tore the place apart.
Was there many of them?
Two of them came in the front door and about another four garda came in the back.

*gaf = house

The first instance of "Garda" here is referring to the force. The second instance refers to individual members of the force -- note how the plural is still "garda".

Not that this discussion is uninteresting, but the idea of this board might be Irish (including Irish grammar) and not English grammar :-)

Dennis,

I gave a look at "it" :

quote:

Some nouns of Japanese origin have no plural and do not change:
samurai samurai
otaku otaku

If I recall correctly, plural in Japanese is hardly ever expressed, and when it is, we can't consider it the same way we do with "s" in English.
Why "s" wouldn't be added in these instances in easily understandable.

quote:

The addition or omission of the s on nouns of Maori origin varies throughout the sociolinguistic spectrum and is politically charged: among Pakeha (New Zealanders of predominantly European descent), older speakers are more likely to add an s, while younger speakers are more likely to omit. Omission is regarded by many as an example of political correctness.
waka waka
marae marae

I don't know maori, but "political correctness" suggests that these nouns either don't have a plural form, or behave like Japanese nouns.

In both cases, in English, these nouns pertain to the first catagory I have given earlier : "1/ the nouns are not new-coined but already exist in another language (like latin nouns : locus > loci)"...


As regards to "garda", the case in entangling....
Fear na mbróg's example is unfortunately in the past tense, which doesn't show the difference between singular and plural.
If I'm not mistaken, we'd have :
"Garda IS TEARING the place apart." and "four garda ARE COMING in the back."

What I meant by "irrelevent" is that you can't explain this like sheep, because sheep is not a regular plural form in the sense that it is an exception to the rule(s). So the reason(s) why the plural of sheep is sheep is (are) more likely to have nothing to do with the reason(s) why the plural of garda is garda.