Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/124

 CH. VIII.] ‘A fool and his money are easily parted.’

‘A dumb priest never got a parish,’ as much as to say if a man wants a thing he must ask and strive for it.

‘A slip of the tongue is no fault of the mind.’ (Munster.)

You merely hint at something requiring no further explanation:—‘A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.’ (Sam Lover: but heard everywhere.)

A very wise proverb often heard among us is:—‘Let well enough alone.’

‘When a man is down, down with him’: a bitter allusion to the tendency of the world to trample down the unfortunate and helpless.

‘The friend that can be bought is not worth buying.’ (Moran: Carlow.)

‘The life of an old hat is to cock it.’ To cock an old hat is to set it jauntingly on the head with the leaf turned up at one side. (S. E. counties.)

‘The man that wears the shoe knows where it pinches.’ It is only the person holding any position that knows the troubles connected with it.

‘Enough and no waste is as good as a faist.’

‘There are more ways of killing a dog than by choking him with butter.’ Applied when some insidious cunning attempt that looks innocent is made to injure another.

‘Well James are you quite recovered now?’ ‘Oh yes, I'm on the baker's list again’: i.e., I am well and have recovered my appetite.

‘An Irishman before answering a question always asks another’: he wants to know why he is asked.

Dan O'Loghlin, a working man, drove up to our