Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/112

 CH. VII.] in Ireland, us is sounded huz, which might seem a Cockney vulgarism, but I think it is not. In Roscommon and in the Munster counties a thong is called a fong.

Chaw for chew, oncet [wonst] for once, twiced for twice, and heighth, sighth, for height, sight, which are common in Ireland, are all old English survivals. Thus in the 'Faerie Queene' (Bk. I., Canto IV. , XXX. ):—


 * 'And next to him malicious Envy rode
 * Upon a ravenous wolfe and still did chaw
 * Between his cankred teeth a venomous tode.'

Chaw is also much used in America. 'Onst for once, is in the Chester Plays' (Lowell); and highth for height is found all through 'Paradise Lost.' So also we have drooth for drought:—


 * 'Like other historians I'll stick to the truth
 * While I sing of the monarch who died of the drooth.'



Joist is sounded joice in Limerick; and catch is everywhere pronounced ketch.

The word hither is pronounced in Ireland hether, which is the correct old English usage, but long since abandoned in England. Thus in a State Paper of 1598, we read that two captains returned hether: and in Spenser's 'View,' he mentions a 'colony [sent] hether out of Spaine.'


 * 'An errant knight or any other wight
 * That hether turns his steps.' ('Faerie Queene.')

Hence we have coined the word comether, for come-hether, to denote a sort of spell brought about