I'm in a part of the world at the moment where I hear all sorts of speakers of English. I hear native speakers from England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA.

I myself speak Dublin English. Having spoken to speakers of many different dialects of English over the last few weeks, I've notice three peculiarities of my own dialect:
1) I pronounce th as either a d or a t.
2) I pronounce a very flat a sound in words such as car, bar.
3) I pronounce a very low u sound in words such as club, pub, husband, up.

The first two peculiarities pose no problems whatsoever, everyone can understand me fine. Strangely though, the 3rd one seems to catch a lot of people out. For instance, if I say "Do you think that's funny?" to a native speaker of English, or an Australian, or a Canadian, or even to a non-native speaker such as a German or a French person, then about 8 times out of 10 they don't understand me; I then have to pronounce funny the way other dialects do, with a higher sort of u sound, and then they instantly cop what I'm saying.

Other than the u thing though, people understand me fine :D

Listening to other dialects of English, I can only think of one sole circumstance in which I really hadn't got a clue what the person was saying; when I first heard a Scottish person say "cannie" instead of "cannot", I really hadn't a clue what was going on!

Are you teaching English by any chance?

If so, how are they on your enunciation? I modify it when teaching.

Sounds to my ear like the old 'ao' in 'saol' etc

On this point of intelligibility, I think Irish people have an ability to work through different pronunciations, to an extent that is rarely found elsewhere in the English-speaking world.

I was in Dublin last year at a gathering of young people from all over Ireland. Now, I'm from Australia, and there were two girls from Liverpool there too. Perhaps I was still jet-lagged, but I found myself completely bewildered following a group conversation involving people from Dublin (from both sides of the Liffey...), Waterford, Cork and Omagh. My sole consolation was when one of the English girls at my side whispered to me "Do you have any idea what they're all sayin'...?!"

That said, I adapted quickly enough to different Irish accents during my travels, and I suppose that it's a reality that many Irish people deal with every day. It might explain why they have little trouble understanding other English accents, but not vice versa for people from other countries.

I actually spent quite a bit of time in Waterford, and definitely noted the first of Tomás' three observations (and the third point to a lesser extent). And similar to the 2nd point - I called one of my Waterford friends earlier this year and at one point, she was saying something about being "at the park", but for the life of me, I kept on hearing "at the perk." It got me wondering how prevalent this is in the Waterford accent - I could hear the 'e' clearly in isolation, but when I was surrounded by different accents every day during my trip, it wasn't something I could easily hear and profitably reflect upon!

(Message edited by roibeárd_an_astrálach on October 11, 2008)

I think the fact Irish people have no trouble with English accents could be the fact they are all watching English TV. In England people rarely see the Irish programs, at least not as much as Irish see English ones.

Kerry all the way! The boatmen of Killarney have some of the best accents.

;p

"Turn left at the white furry house." Chuala mé é seo na blianta ó shin i Londain nuair a chuir mé faisnéis an bhealaigh. Séard a bhí i gceist ná teach tábhairne, The White Ferry House. Tá díomá orm fós. Ní fhaca mé teach bán clúmhach riamh.

Quite true Pye - the same seems true for the exposure of Irish people to the Australian accent (via 'Home and Away' and 'Neighbours'). Another one of my Waterford friends stayed with me in Melbourne in July, and she seemed genuinely disappointed that our accent is less marked than many of her favourite TV characters!

In contrast, most Australians only hear an Irish accent (and a diminishing one at that) when our two most prominent Irish-Australians are on TV - former footballer Jim Stynes and the comedian Jimeoin.

masculine nouns:

an tAstrálach
an tOstarach
an tAlbanach
an t-amhrán
an t-eagarthóir
an t-uan

feminine nouns:

an uair
an aois
an eisceacht

Dennis, this is one of the joys of learning Irish!

Otherwise known as: Anyone for "t"?

Is fiú an tsúil a choimeád ar an litir "t" an tseachtain go léir agus anois tar éis an tsamhraidh nuair a bhíonn an t-úll aibí ar an úrlar(!) i dteach an tsaineolaí a bhfuil an t-eolas is breátha aige, tar éis an tsaoil.

Nooooo!!! Tá ceart agat...(obviously)! *sobs quietly*

I knew much less Irish when I registered, and whilst I'm quite well aware now of the effect of definite articles on masculine nouns, I hadn't picked up on the mistake yet. :)

I wonder if I can change my login name - probably not. Oh well...go raibh maith agat, a Dhennis!

This has got me thinking - a little bit random, but...

Why then is the song 'The Little Priest' called 'An Sagairtín' as Gaeilge? 'Sagart' is a masculine noun, and therefore so is the diminutive form. Shouldn't it then be 'An tSagairtín'?

And a second question, now that I think about it. Why is 'sagart' written 'sagairt' in this title? It that it's genitive form perhaps? And if so, what is 'sagart' in genitive relation to?!?

I'm so confused...

(Message edited by roibeárd_an_astrálach on October 13, 2008)

Ná bí buartha a Roibeaird, tiocfaidh tú isteach ar an gcleas san, an 't' roimh 's'.

And as to 'an caolú ar an 't' láir:

An Sagairtín has a narrowed - palitalized - internal 't' because its meeting with the -ín termination.





In reference to its 'articular t', which precedes it in genitive, yes, as a masculine noun, it behaves just like sagart would:

An Sagairtín (Nom.)
.. cuid d'obair an tsagairtín (Gen.)



Notice how a feminine's 'articular t' shall behave in an exactly opposite fashion (being there for it in Nominative and not being present in Genitive:

An tsráid (Nom.)
... ar fud na sráide (Gen.)


A married and divorced situation, is dócha!

quote:

I wonder if I can change my login name

Ní dóigh liom é. Ach... you can register again as "Roibeard_an_tAstrálach" and copy your profile info to that file. BTW, you don't need the síneadh fada over 'a' in Roibeard.

Fáilte romhat inár measc!

I had a bit of miscommunication in English again lastnight! It took me about ten seconds to convey the number "one" to somebody.

He was asking me about the amount of something and I said "one". He responded "What?". I again said "one". Yet again, he said "What?". This continued for a few more seconds as I was in disbelief that he couldn't understand me. Finally I held out two fingers and said "two", then I dropped one of my fingers and said "one". Then he said "ooooh, one".

I say "one" as if it were written "wun" with a very low u sound. He says it as if it were written "won" with a higher sort of u sound. Same problem with "funny, husband, club, pub, up". If you take the word "teacher", take the last syllable and drop the r, then that's the vowel sound I make.

I have a question to ask of all the native speakers of English here:
Is there any dialect of English that doesn't contract going to to gonna, want to to wanna, would have to wuda, and should have to shuda?

I might end up teaching English here soon, and I'm going to teach real English from the offset, not theoretical English. I'll teach them gonna, wuda, cuda, shuda, wanna, and I'll also teach them the contracted forms from the offset (e.g. I'm, you're, he's) before I later tell them what the long form is.

Now that I'm learning, and am immersed in, a completely different foreign language, I can really see the ridiculous fallacies that some people perpetuate in teaching a language. For instance, if you listen to Lao television, you'll hear them make a "rolled r" sound. However, not one single Lao person makes such a sound. The logic in my head tells me that the people are right, and that television is wrong, but of course snobbery prevails and the telly people some how think they have the upper hand! Same goes for English, I mean today in 2008 you're just kidding yourself if you think "would have" is correct English.

I'd feel I'm doing my students a disservice if I were to teach them "would have" instead of the ubiquitous "wuda". I was getting Lao language lessons for a few days but I gave them up when I realised the teacher was teaching me "theoretical Lao". For instance, to indicate possession in Lao, you do exactly the same thing as in Irish, you just put the person's name after the noun, so "John's dog" is "maa John". However the teacher was telling me "maa kong John", where "kong" is some sort of word that indicates ownership. After five weeks of listening to people speak here in Lao though, I've haven't heard one person say "kong". Now I've given up formal lessons and I'm just picking up more bit by bit every day by practising talking to people, it works wonders.

Heh...I'm reading your example and I'd pronounce "wun" and "won" the same way, the way you'd say "won." I'd do the same with the Us in funny, husband, club, pub and up.

As for teaching the others, please make sure they know where the stuff comes from. I teach remedial English at two colleges, and most of my students are foreign. They fail the placement test because (among other things) they write coulda, shoulda, woulda and/or could of, should of, would of in their essays.

Teach 'em the "right" way first, make sure they know that's what they're expected to use in writing (and yes, I use "should have" about 1/3 as much as "shoulda"), then tell them that English, like other languages, runs sounds together in informal speech and produces things like coulda, woulda, gonna, etc.

It depends -if they need to use the written registrar, then teaching 'could not have' as 'cun(d)av' as I personally say in fast speech, would do the student a great dis-service

If on the other hand, you got them to understand a modal construction such as 'I want to go to Paris' as a sentence 'I +go +to Paris' with 'wanna' dropped in to signal the modality (and it succeeds in helping them) then it may do them no harm.

The crux is that they will write it down and it is easier to go from 'could have' to 'kud have' to 'kud hav' to 'kudav' than vice versa

One more thing, 'would have' is not always shortened, so be careful -they could generalize it to everywhere

I would have to go -->"Ai wud haf tu gó"

I would have had to go -->"Ai wuda had tu gó"

quote:

Is there any dialect of English that doesn't contract going to to gonna, want to to wanna, would have to wuda, and should have to shuda?

Almost certainly. When you're dealing with a language that exists in so many varieties worldwide as English does, it's extremely hard to make any generalisations that aren't violated somewhere.

I'd repeat Bearn's caution (note also "I'm going to Laos" but not *"I'm gonna Laos") and add one of my own. Fluent speakers don't expect colloquial contractions from those with relatively basic English. Imagine someone saying "I shuda gone" with a heavy non-English accent of any sort. I don't know about you, but I imagine I would have[*] more difficulty parsing this than I would "I should have gone" or even "I should've gone". When confronted by someone with heavily-accented English, most native speakers will clean up their diction to improve intelligibility. So the "shudas" and "cudas" will be pushed aside in favour of "should have" and "would have", just as the slang evapourates and dropped pronouns reappear.

[*] Note that in this instance "I would have" contracts to "I'd have" rather than "I wuda". Can you explain why to your Lao students in a sentence or two? If not, perhaps it's a bit early to introduce contractions.

When i first moved to the US (Texas) people would laugh when I didn't (and i still dont) pronounce my 'th' sound. thirty three sounded 'turty tree' People didn't have a clue what i said half the time. I never realized before this that I didnt pronounce my th's. it is interesting that I only lived about 50 miles away from where Thomas is from (I lived in Portlaoise) but my accent and his sound very different (at least to our ears) but I can definitely say from how you described your accent that you have what I'd call a typical Dublin accent. broad 'a' sound even more so than my 'bog' accent. and your low 'u' sound is definitely very Dublin. funny but i know people that live 5 miles away from the town of Portlaoise and I'd say their accent is different than mine yet again. I wonder is that unique to Ireland that there is so much variation in such short distances?

but from What Thomas says regarding our 'Irish' English, it makes me think that I shouldn't get so hung up on how Irish (Gaeilge) is pronounced in this area and that area and that even if you learn a standard version you'll have to learn more of the colloguaisms (sp?) of the different areas later on anyways. Or if you learn a regional dialect you'll still probably have to learn standard spelling down the road.

but I do think its appropriate in whatever language you are teaching/learning to know the formal and how its written but to learn to speak the language you'd have to hear how its spoken by everyday people i.e. the living evolving language. I think you have to be cognisant of both approaches to language and language learning/teaching.

The english TH's and R's are what might make my pronunciation problematic too... the Finns don't natively know either sound, or other S than the clear one. Yet most people I get to talk english to, will understand my pronunciation (even with rolled R and sometimes very crisp T for TH). Some years back, the school I shortly worked at, had Polish visitors, and they had some trouble understanding me, but then, it also took me some effort to parse their speech. After some trial and error, we too came along neatly.

"I wonder is that unique to Ireland that there is so much variation in such short distances? "

It's not unique. I live in NJ, which is about the size and dimensions of Israel, I can identify four distinct accents, Northeast Urban, Northwest Rural, Central (Monmouth, Middlesex, Mercer and Ocean Counties), and South (Tom's River and south). There's probably fifth clustered around Philly and Camden, but I don't have much contact with people from out that way.

Even within the first group, I can usually distinguish between three subgroups: Jersey City/North Bergen, Hoboken and Newark/Elizabeth.

quote:

1) I pronounce th as either a d or a t.

quote:

I didn't (and i still dont) pronounce my 'th' sound. thirty three sounded 'turty tree'

An bhfuil a fhios agaibh go raibh na fuaimeanna seo, /θ/ ("thing") agus /δ/ ("then") beo i nGaeilge fadó? Ar feadh ré na Sean-Ghaeilge, b'ionann "th" agus /θ/, agus b'ionann "d(h)" agus /δ/. Mar shampla, deirtí "a thúath" mar /a θuːǝθ/ (ah thoo-uth). Cailleadh na fuaimeanna seo i gcaint na ndaoine le linn ré na Meán-Ghaeilge, ach mhair siad beo fós i bhfilíocht na scol.

"your low 'u' sound"

Technically , that u is higher (and fronter) then usualy u sounds...

"it makes me think that I shouldn't get so hung up on how Irish (Gaeilge) is pronounced in this area and that area and that even if you learn a standard version you'll have to learn more of the colloguaisms (sp?) of the different areas later on anyways. Or if you learn a regional dialect you'll still probably have to learn standard spelling down the road."

You seem to be confusing enunciation, phonemics, idiom, spelling and orthography! Not nitpicking; I think I get what you mean but it is not very clearly laid out

"ach mhair siad beo fós i bhfilíocht na scol."

Cá fhad a mhair sí? Go dtí an 18ú haois?

In general, local variation in accents increases with the length of habitation. New Jersey has a greater variety of accents than elsewhere in the USA because it's been settled by English speakers longer, but the diversity is still shallow compared to that of Ireland, where English has a longer history. But even the dialectal diversity of England itself is much less than that of the Netherlands, where the presence of Germanic speech dates back several centuries more--and so on and so forth.

Well, while NJ may have 2.5x the population of Ireland, it has an area of a little less than Munster Province. I think space has something to do with it as well.

The major dialectal differences in Dublin is unnatural. It's purely to do with socio-economic class (or whatever you wanna call it). For instance, the people who live in council estates who have a joint for breakfast don't socialise with the people whose father is a lawyer. These two socio-economic groups can be just a few miles apart and yet have incredibly different accents! The "Dublin 4" area of Dublin is well known for it's incredibly out-of-place accent -- not only does it not sound like a Dublin accent, but it doesn't even sound like an Irish accent! These people are as wealthy as they are snobby. Their kids go to private schools, all that jazz. Now of course I'd be the first person to say "Just because your wealthy doesn't mean you have to be snobby", but that doesn't detract from the fact that the vast majority of these wealthy people are snobby. (This statement is based on my own personal experience having lived in Dublin for 21 years).

quote:

When i first moved to the US (Texas) people would laugh when I didn't (and i still dont) pronounce my 'th' sound. thirty three sounded 'turty tree' People didn't have a clue what i said half the time.

I've experienced something totally different. I'm in South-East Asia at the moment and I speak to lots of different kinds of people everyday. I speak to people from India, USA, Canada, France, Spain, Malaysia, Singapore, Lao, Thailand, England, Ireland. None of these people had any problem understanding my speech (except of course for my u sound). I could say "tirty tree" till my face goes blue and they'd still know what I'm saying.

quote:

I teach remedial English at two colleges, and most of my students are foreign. They fail the placement test because (among other things) they write coulda, shoulda, woulda and/or could of, should of, would of in their essays.

First and foremost you learn the language. Afterwards you can learn the snobbery as to why it's more correct to write "could have" instead of "cuda" even though the vast vast vast majority of native English speakers say the latter. With me learning the Lao language, I've made way more progress ever since I gave up the snobby formal lessons and just started to imitate the locals.

quote:

Teach 'em the "right" way first, make sure they know that's what they're expected to use in writing (and yes, I use "should have" about 1/3 as much as "shoulda"), then tell them that English, like other languages, runs sounds together in informal speech and produces things like coulda, woulda, gonna, etc.

Quite the contrary, I'd teach them the right way first "cuda, shuda, wuda", and then explain to them that Mr Snottynose will look down on them if they write "cuda", and so they should write "could have" instead if they want his approval. Forgive my bluntness, but you really didn't prepare them very well if you sent them into a (snobby) written test without first telling them to substitute "cuda" with "could have".

quote:

One more thing, 'would have' is not always shortened, so be careful -they could generalize it to everywhere

I would have to go -->"Ai wud haf tu gó"

I would have had to go -->"Ai wuda had tu gó"

Imagine that the second one were spelled differently, e.g. "would haave" instead of "would have", then the student would very easily be able to keep them separate in their head. Well I would create my own device for keeping them separate, I would tell them that "I would have (past tense indicator)" is a totally different animal altogether from "I would have (the verb to possess)". I'd drill this in right from the start. Same goes for "I'm going to school" versus "I'm going to open my book".

quote:

QUESTION: Is there any dialect of English that doesn't contract going to to gonna, want to to wanna, would have to wuda, and should have to shuda?

ANSWER: Almost certainly. When you're dealing with a language that exists in so many varieties worldwide as English does, it's extremely hard to make any generalisations that aren't violated somewhere.

That's a very easy statement to make without proof. The reason I asked the question is that I've been exposed to countless dialects of English over the last few weeks and not one of them has said "could have", "would have"! Every single one of them, the Americans, the Canadians, the New Zealanders, the Australians, the English, have said "I wuda" or "I'd a". So I ask, can you actually name a dialect of English in which the people say "would have" or "could have"? Buckingham Palace doesn't count.


(Message edited by Tomás_Ó_hÉilidhe on October 15, 2008)

There was a superb piece on the subject of regional and sub-regional dialects on PBS some years back. I found it very interesting on a number of levels. Their attention to the multitude of different Southern accents was fantastic. I grew up actually knowing the difference but wasn't that keenly aware of what made them different until watching this special. Their attention to the various New England dialects was even more detailed. If I remember correctly, within Boston alone there are something like 9 or 10 different "Boston" accents...there's Southie, Back Bay, Brockton...the list was rather extensive and hearing them spoken side by side they were clearly different yet all clearly associated as "Boston" accents.

I'll dig around and see if I can find a link to that piece. Surely it is archived somewhere on the PBS web-site.

"First and foremost you learn the language. Afterwards you can learn the snobbery as to why it's more correct to write "could have" instead of "cuda" even though the vast vast vast majority of native English speakers say the latter."

That'd be all well and good if it were true. Sadly, the "native" stuff like that my students learned in their ESL classes are providing an unbelievable barrier to them. What they learned first sticks, and they find it virtually impossible to reverse engineer "native slack" into academically acceptable use.

Although, after having graded 40 essays last night, the only people (save one) who were using "woulda" and "gonna" et al. were the native speakers (part of why they're in my writing class). The esl students keep saying things like "could of."

And yes, I do cover "code-switching" with them, because on some level it is a class thing (a concern of form over practical function), but they have been done an IMMENSE disservice by focusing on casual, everday speech to the detriment of what's "grammatically acceptable" and it is going to cost them quite a bit of time, effort and money to fix.

In short, learn the hard way first, then the easy way - trying to do it the other way around makes things more difficult. And hard vs easy is really what it's all about...it's "harder" to enunciate "could have" and "going to," so we clip it to "coulda" and "gonna" in speech.

And if you are going to teach them that stuff at all, be concerned about spelling. The ones I've been using were the only spellings for them I'd ever seen until this year. Especially for English speakers, it preserves the etymology and will make it easier for them to both see where the word came from (keeping it straight in their heads) as well as maybe making it easier to switch between the forms (eg "woulda" instead of "wuda")

Trying to directly teach "native conversational English" is part of what keeps the people at engrish.com in business (granted, all the errors are not related to that, but a number are)...don't do that to your students...

quote:

So I ask, can you actually name a dialect of English in which the people say "would have" or "could have"? Buckingham Palace doesn't count.

My ex boyfriend talks this way. He was born in Hollywood and grew up in Sherman Oaks. He also has the curious habit of using an explicit dummy verb in replies, e.g.

Me: "You should've called first."
Him: "I should have done. But I didn't think of it."

"So I ask, can you actually name a dialect of English in which the people say "would have" or "could have"? "

I think you are confusing 'dialect' with context here -if you are being somewhat thoughtful and thinking to yourself while talking about a hypothetical situation, and being somewhat emphatic, for example "I would have, but..." you may slow down and say them distinctly

Antaine has vastly more experience than I, but my year of teaching would tend to make me agree, and here's why. If you are a pirate on a ship, circa 1768, and you speak 8 or more languages (say English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Maltese, another African tongue and a Polunesian one too) it does not matter that you are not a functional literate in each (or even any). Today, however, the ESL student will be. Of course, teaching only writing is not going to get them to speak it, but that is not the point. They 'learn' to get certs that say they have English they will never use, so they can get better jobs.

"He also has the curious habit of using an explicit dummy verb in replies"

I'm known to do that too, so again it may not be dialect specific

"Today, however, the ESL student will be"

Should be, "will have to be, in English" not in 8 miscellaneous languages ...

Well...I couldn't find a link to the exact broadcast I was referencing earlier, but I did find an interesting piece called "From Sea To Shining Sea". I won't delve into all of the minutia, but I did want to provide this link

http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/lumbee

This group lives just down the road from me and constituted about 70% of my patient population when I was practicing in the civilian sector.

Other American regional accents/dialects (I know there's a difference) are referenced here..two variances of Southern English, New England, etc.

http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/

I believe this will be airing in January but I'm not sure. It may have aired in January and I missed it.

James, were you looking for "Do You Speak American?" with Robert MacNeil??

http://www.pbs.org/speak/

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june05/american_1-5.html

It was a great program, and there is a book available, too.

I got this from the site that Aaron posted about changes in the English language.

I find it interesting and relatable to discussions I've heard related to the different dialects in Irish and why people may cling to thier particular dialect and also how language including Irish are continually evolving...

"People cling to local speech patterns, such as the distinctive speech of Pittsburgh, to give them a sense of place and belonging" <--- well in a similar way its no wonder people from Donegal or Connemara or Chorca Duibhne are so protective of thier particular dialect. its part of them. Helps me appreciate the need to continually work on understanding Dialects in Geaeilge as I try learn the language.


part of the rest of that PBS program are below:

Regional dialects, accents and pronunciations of American English remain vigorous. Some are growing more distinctive, not less.
Changes in pronunciation that linguists do consider revolutionary are occurring in cities around the Great Lakes where, for example, the vowel in busses can sound like bosses, and block sounds more like black.
Media exposure can spread new vocabulary and give people in different regions an understanding of the "standard American" that broadcasters use, but it does not make listeners speak that way themselves.
People cling to local speech patterns, such as the distinctive speech of Pittsburgh, to give them a sense of place and belonging. As linguist, Carmen Fought puts it: "People want to talk like the people they want to be like."
Due to a huge migration to the South and Southwest and the national appeal of country music, Southern speech is now the largest accent group in the United States.
The dominant form is what linguists call Inland Southern, deriving from Appalachia, with the final "r" pronounced in words such as mother. The Plantation Southern of the coastal plains, with its r-less pronunciation, is dying out. Southerners are now pronouncing their 'r's.

So I ask, can you actually name a dialect of English in which the people say "would have" or "could have"

I do this sometimes, even in informal speech, but as usual it depends on context.

For example, I'd say "I would've gone if I were asked."

But if somebody asked me "Would you have gone if you were asked?" I might very well reply with "I would have", with each word distinctly said, rather than using the contraction.

I almost never say "woulda," "shoulda," "coulda." I use the standard contractions and pronounce the "v" sound explicitly.

My ex boyfriend talks this way. He was born in Hollywood and grew up in Sherman Oaks. He also has the curious habit of using an explicit dummy verb in replies, e.g.

Me: "You should've called first."
Him: "I should have done. But I didn't think of it."

Not to be facetious, but would you say he has the Golden Era Hollywood Actor Accent?

I think I've only ever read or heard a dummy verb used like that by Brits and by cinematic depictions of severely upper crust Old Money.

To add more grist to the mill, I've heard the dummy verb with contractions too!

As an aside, I think the bigger problems you will have with Asian students is the lack of cultural 'scripts' -things people in the West share on an international level will be missing. Thus, when you read a story set in New York, so much of the story is implied (size of NY, attitude, types of people etc) and not written out, that this will add problems for them. Added to the fact that they parse for nouns (Asian students are never told about concepts such as phrases, topic and content, predicate and extension etc).

Another problem, in Korea at least, for all this talk about being 'subtle', I find them to have no ability to read between the lines. Here in this country at least, everything must be spelled out, yet they expect you to know about things you were never told of...

Tá cara Éireannach liom (bean as Co. Laoise) a bhaineanns úsáid as an "do" úd go míonmhinic.

Cuirtear san áireamh go bhfuil daoine a bhfuil a gcanúint féin acu níos daingní ná a chéile. Má bhím féin ag caint le Sasanach nó Éireannach, ní fada nó go maolaíonn rud beag ar an mblas lár-Mheiriceánach is dual sinsear dom - saghas Béarla meán-Atlantach a thosaím a chleachtadh i nganfhios dom féin - ach tá cara liom anseo a raibh an tógáil tuathach lár-Mheiriceánach céanna aici nach mór, agus ní hamhlaidh dise ná baol air. Bíonn a blas féin go láidir uirthi féin, cuma cé lena labhraíonn sí nó cé chomh fada.

Ní mé céard a thabharfaí ar a leathbhreac sin d'idirchanúint i saol na Gaeilge - Gaeilge Áth Luanach, measann sibh?