How the Irish Invented Slang

How the Irish Invented Slang A few weeks ago, I heard Daniel Cassidy on the Last Word with Matt Cooper. It was a lively interview, and Cassidy’s premise – that many American slang words originate from the Irish language – was an intriguing one.

I ordered the book, and it’s arrived. It’s more scholarly that I would have expected from the interview (turns out that Cassidy is a professor and founder of the New College of California), and the historical as well as etymological background is well-drawn. What’s really astonishing is that so few words in English dictionaries are credited to Irish (most of Cassidy’s English words are listed “origin unknown,” and when you think about the huge diaspora, it’s a certainty that the Irish would have contributed words to English.

Some examples from the book:

  • Baloney – Béal Ánna, meaning silly, foolish talk
  • Boss – Bás, meaning boss, best, very good
  • Brag – Bréag, meaning a lie, exaggeration, deception
  • Cop – Ceap, meaning a protector or chief. The verb “ceap” has meanings including to catch or intercept.
  • Daddy – Daidí­
  • Gab – Gab, a chattering mouth
  • Goon – Guan
  • Hick – Aitheach, meaning a peasant, a churl
  • Jazz – Teas, meaning heat, passion, excitement
  • Lucre – Luach Áir, meaning reward of gold
  • Shack – Teach, meaning house
  • Shanty – Seantigh, meaning old house
  • Slob – Slab, meaning mud or a dirty or slovenly person
  • Smashing – ‘s maith sin, meaning “it is good”
  • So long – Slán

There are many more, and I highly suggest the book. At the very least it’s bound to lead to some interesting conversations!

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New Website and Italian in Limerick

Murphys Ice Cream Website Things are getting quite crazy here in the world of ice cream as we really enter the height of high season! Bad weather or not, we’re busy! Mind you, it seems that here in Dingle we’ve been spared the worst of the weather that has hit the East Coast of Ireland and the UK. We’ve had our sunny days!

Most of my time is spent keeping things going and trying to give our customers attention, but I’ve also managed to finish our new website (photo above). One thing I love about technology these days is that it has become much more democratic. There are so many tools out there that it’s not necessary to hire a webmaster or farm it out. So this time, we did it ourselves. Our site might not be perfect, but I’m happy with it, and it wasn’t even all that time-consuming… Ruth at Urru was asking about it, so here’s a link for the software we used. It cost a whopping $49…

Yesterday, my brother and I made a mad dash up the country for a meeting with our distributor, and on the way back we stopped for a quick snack at La Cucina in Castletroy, Limerick. Lorraine wasn’t there, but we met her mother, and this little place has a great vibe and a steady stream of visibly happy customers. There are all sorts of Italian goodies on the walls to take home as well. We didn’t have time to sample the coffee or tempting display of sweet things, but the pizza and pasta certainly helped us make it home safe to Kerry. Thanks, Lorraine!

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The Princess, the Pea, the Ice Cream

Green Pea and Mint Ice Cream We here in the world of ice cream have done our little bit for the much-publicised McManus-Foley wedding by sending up 300 litres of ice cream. We were contracted by Masterchefs Hospitality, who are doing the food and wanted green pea and mint ice cream (above) as well as a bloody mary ice cream. I hope the family and guests enjoy it!

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Apologies for being off-line

I must apologise to everyone who tried to access this site over the last days. I’ve been so busy in the shop that I didn’t realise that I had run out of bandwidth due to the extra traffic generated by the Irish Blog Awards. I had paid for extra bandwidth earlier in the month, but it clearly wasn’t enough. By the time I checked the site and my email on Friday evening, the folks at Blacknight, who host this site had headed away for the weekend, and there was nothing I could do… So sorry!

It’s an odd thing when you have a huge spike in traffic that is a “once off,” and I’d be interested to know how other bloggers handle it. The salesman at Blacknight with whom I corresponded when I bought the extra bandwidth was unwilling to cut me any slack (even in return for me singing their praises on the blog) and was interested only in trying to sell a more expensive package, which would be generally three or four times the bandwidth I need in a normal month. I was down for almost three days. Ouch! Once again, apologies…

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New Music for the Shops

Salsa Celtica Anyone who has been in our shops knows how much we love our music. I wanted to freshen up the world category, which has more than 3,000 songs (on an Ipod) but has been a bit over-loaded with North African music after my trip to Morocco, so I bought a few albums. My favourite of the lot is Salsa Celtica’s “El Camino.” This Scottish band has a beguiling blend of salsa with a blast of celtic fiddle. Some of it went into our Irish category. The mix of Cuban and Celtic might sound lame, but it really works and the album is well worth checking out…

PS. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Ice Cream Helps Fertility?

Pregnant Mom Sky News covered a story yesterday that’s been going around the media: ice cream can help women conceive. The study, done by Harvard School of Public Health nurses, involved 18,555 women, aged 24 to 42, with no history of infertility.

(My mother, shown pregnant with my brother Sean above, was not part of the study, but certainly favoured her ice cream!)

Researcher Dr Jorge Chavarro said those wishing to get pregnant “should consider changing low-fat dairy foods for high-fat dairy foods; for instance, by swapping skimmed milk for whole milk and eating ice cream, not low fat yoghurt.”

I always knew that ice cream could make you happy and relaxed, and that it’s a great addition to a romantic evening in, but this is good news indeed! I look forward to meeting some Murphys Ice Cream babies (if there aren’t some out there already)!

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10 Things to Give up for Lent

Assorted chocolates We’re into Lent (a Teutonic word meaning simply “Springtime”), but it certainly doesn’t seem to have made any difference to our customers in the Dingle shop, where we had a huge day today, serving out lots of chocolate, coffee, ice cream, etc.

Of course, I don’t have any problem with that, since fasting traditionally meant giving up meat, and we have none on offer. I wrote about sweets and Lent last year (here), and I don’t think I’ll add more except to say that there cannot be any doubt in my mind about hot chocolate being perfectly ok during any fast, since the Vatican made a pronouncement in 1662, allowing it (more here). 

What I will do is add my second annual list of things to give up for Lent:

  1. Crab Cappuccinos (or any such appetisers or in between courses)
  2. Any “Super-sized” food item
  3. Drinking at home in a rural area (Irish country pubs need the business, and we might as well keep our taxi drivers happy too)
  4. Being in such a hurry
  5. Fake chai (chai is not a syrup!)
  6. Eating in the car (excluding snacks)
  7. Non-ripe supermarket fruit, especially those white, tasteless strawberries
  8. Any cake that goes by the name of “Gateau,” unless you happen to be in France
  9. Tipping for terrible service
  10. Diet minerals or anything labeled “low fat” that has high calories and dubious sugar substitutes

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