Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/101

 86 'I have you found out at last.' 'The children had me vexed.' (Jane Barlow.)


 * 'And she is a comely maid
 * That has my heart betrayed.'


 * (Old Irish Folk-Song.)


 * '... I fear,
 * That some cruel goddess has him captivated,
 * And has left here in mourning his dear Irish maid.'


 * (See my Old Irish Folk Music and Songs, p. 208.)

Corresponding devices are resorted to for the pluperfect. Sometimes the simple past is used where the pluperfect ought to come in:—'An hour before you came yesterday I finished my work': where it should be 'I had finished.' Anything to avoid the pluperfect, which the people cannot manage.

In the Irish language (but not in English) there is what is called the consuetudinal tense, i.e. denoting habitual action or existence. It is a very convenient tense, so much so that the Irish, feeling the want of it in their English, have created one by the use of the word do with be: 'I do be at my lessons every evening from 8 to 9 o'clock.' 'There does be a meeting of the company every Tuesday.' ‘’Tis humbuggin' me they do be.’ ('Knocknagow.')

Sometimes this is expressed by be alone without the do; but here the be is also often used in the ordinary sense of is without any consuetudinal meaning. 'My father bees always at home in the morning': 'At night while I bees reading my wife bees knitting.' (Consuetudinal.) 'You had better not wait till it bees night.' (Indicative.)


 * 'I'll seek out my Blackbird wherever he be.' (Indicative.)


 * (Old Folk Song—'The Blackbird.')