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PostPosted: Sun 23 Dec 2012 10:23 pm 
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We often rue the fact that so the use of many English words have become the norm when speaking Irish. In Ireland, we have incorporated some words/phrases from Irish into our English, Hiberno English.

I learned in school that 'The window was smashed into smithereens' comes from 'bhí an fhuinneog briste i smidiríní'. Has anyone else any other examples?

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PostPosted: Sun 23 Dec 2012 11:13 pm 
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Saoirse wrote:
We often rue the fact that so the use of many English words have become the norm when speaking Irish. In Ireland, we have incorporated some words/phrases from Irish into our English, Hiberno English.

I learned in school that 'The window was smashed into smithereens' comes from 'bhí an fhuinneog briste i smidiríní'. Has anyone else any other examples?


There's quite a few:

The usual common Hiberno-English phrases:

Bímse go maith "I do be well"

Ag tabhairt amach "giving out"

Thug sé fuaim "he went for me" (he attacked me), Thugas fén bhfior/ bhfear (I went for the man)

Mo dhuine "your man"

chun féachaint an bhféadfainn aon mhaitheas a tharraigt as an ndíobháil "to see if I could take any goodness from the mess.

Tháim (díreach) t'réis/ d'éis m'obair bhaile a dhéanadh "I am (just) after doing my homework"

Tháím díreach t'réis mo ghuthán póca a dh'fhágaint im dhiaidh "I'm just after leaving my mobile after me (I'm just after forgetting my phone)

Dhe(a)ra "Era", as in: "Era, twasn't to bad he still managed to finish the race"

I don't know how widespread this is, but where I live we call mushrooms "pookies" from na Púcaí!

That's a smasher of a kiss, from smaiseog "loud kiss"

There's lots more though!

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I'm familiar with Munster Irish/ Gaolainn na Mumhan (GM) and the Official Standard/an Caighdeán Oifigiúil (CO)


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PostPosted: Mon 24 Dec 2012 12:13 am 
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What I heard (or read) about 'smithereens' is that it does indeed come from the word smidiríní but that the now-archaic word 'smithers' (means tiny pieces) was in English first.

Similarly the word Craic which has now entered English in its Irish form, apparently came from the English work 'crack' in the first place (also meaning 'fun').

There was a black and white film called Whisky Galore. It is interesting that both of the words in the title come from Irish. Interesting too that we've kind of done the smithers/crack thing in Irish too: uisce beatha...whisky...fuisce.

BTW, you used the word 'smashed'. It reminds me that some people thing 'smashing' (meaning 'really great') comes from 'Is maith sin'. I'm not inclined to believe it for a second but I could be wrong. There are lots of words in English which supposedly came from Irish, but probably didn't!

Two Geographical words come from Irish originally: esker and corrie (this second one coming into English from Scottish Gaelic apparently.


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