I'll be damned. I'm sitting here reading "Word Order in Irish Sentences" inmy Irish Grammer by McGonagle, and it just hit me that the following example that he uses contains a word that was common when I was a kid growing up in northeastern Pennsylvania:

Bhuail an fear an cat inné.

The man beat the cat yesterday.

When I was a kid, we'd commonly say things like "When Sean finally got home after staying out all night, his father whaled on him but good," meaning of course that his father put a good beating on him.

Perhaps it's a coincidence but who knows!

Em... I don't mean to sound dumb, but I don't know what you're getting at? Where's the coincidence?

I don't understand either.

Bhuail an fear an cat inné.

is word for word literally:

Beat the man the cat yesterday.

I think bhuail is pronounced "whale". both mean to beat

He's saying Bhuail=Wail phonetically. but wouldn't it be more like WOOL, rhyming with POOL?

Sorry, I thought I was clear the first time through but apparently not... apologies.

Antaine has it. Bhuail = "Whale", phonetically, or so I assumed... and we always used "whale" as a slang synonym for "to beat".

I raise the topic here because this is one of a number of terms that I have not encountered anywhere other than my hometown, which is heavily of Irish background.

(Message edited by domhnall_Ó_h_aireachtaigh on October 28, 2006)

Hmm, I thought it was pronounced Wool, not Wale?

Bhuail an fear an cat inné
wuə(i)lʲ ə ɸʲæːɾ ə kat̪ˠ iɲeː


Whale on far on kot injae
w̻ʰeː(i)l ɔn fæɹ ɔn kaṭ iɲeː


It's ironic that for a pronounciation that is supposed to be 'phonetic' it is pretty different. I can't comment on phonological change in loan words, as I dont know much about it, but that a diphthong /@u/ was changed to /e:/ and the voiced bilabial to an unvoiced one (altho americans may only have the voiced one) seems a far strech when english has some nearby equivalents

I've only ever heard "bhuail" pronounced to rhyme with "jewel" (as in precious jems). I've never heard it pronounced with a long "a" sound as in "whale".

Hmm.. I see what you were getting at Domhnall. However, I have also only hear it as a rhyme to jewel/pool.

On another note, that term is quite common here which is why I didn't make a connection at first.

for example - "That guy was getting whaled on." or "Quit whaling on me about that."

Anyways - this reminds me. What ever happend to Dancas?

I support Fear na mBrog - basically in all Irish dialects "buail" is supposed to rhyme with "jewel" or "poor", "sure"(if those ARE NOT rhyming with "pore"!)

however, it coudl have made its way into english by way of a corrupted pronunciation in one narrow usage and then that sound expanded to other uses (starting with wail, becoming wailed in the past tense).

Not saying this is necessarily what happened, but what might have.

www.dictionary.com has an entry from the American Heritage dictionary indicating the origin of the word "whale" as in hitting, unkown, from circa 1790.

and there are those who will also say that many words of Irish origin are attributed to other origins or claimed as "unknown" due to a prejudice against Irish influence on english in the linguistic community. Don't know how true that is, but I've heard it many times in different circles.