Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/105

 90 'I'm very glad entirely to hear it.' 'He is very sick entirely.' This word entirely is one of our most general and characteristic intensives. 'He is a very good man all out.' 'This day is guy and wet': 'that boy is guy and fat' (Ulster). A half fool of a fellow looking at a four-wheeled carriage in motion: 'Aren't the little wheels damn good not to let the big wheels overtake them.' In the early days of cycling a young friend of mine was riding on a five-foot wheel past two countrymen; when one remarked to the other:—'Tim, that's a gallows way of travelling.' 'I was up murdering late last night.' (Crofton Croker.)

In the Irish language there are many diminutive terminations, all giving the idea of 'little,' which will be found fully enumerated and illustrated in my 'Irish Names of Places,' vol. ii, chap. ii. Of these it may be said that only one—ín or een—has found its way into Ireland's English speech, carrying with it its full sense of smallness. There are others—án or aun, and óg or oge; but these have in great measure lost their original signification; and although we use them in our Irish-English, they hardly convey any separate meaning. But een is used everywhere: it is even constantly tacked on to Christian names (especially of boys and girls):—Mickeen (little Mick), Noreen, Billeen, Jackeen (a word applied to the conceited little Dublin citizen). So also you hear Birdeen, Robineen-redbreast, bonniveen, &c. A boy who apes to be a man—puts on airs like a man—is called a manneen in contempt (exactly equivalent to the English mannikin). I knew a boy named Tommeen Trassy: and the name stuck to him even when he