Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/136

 CH. XI.] A man who is unlucky, with whom everything goes wrong:—'If that man got a hen to hatch duck eggs, the young ducks would be drowned.' Or again, 'If that man sowed oats in a field, a crop of turnips would come up.' Or: 'He is always in the field when luck is on the road.'

The following expression is often heard:—'Ah, old James Buckley is a fine piper: I'd give my eyes to be listening to him.'

That fellow is so dirty that if you flung him against a wall he'd stick. (Patterson: Ulster.)

Two young men are about to set off to seek their fortunes, leaving their young brother Rory to stay with their mother. But Rory, a hard active merry cute little fellow, proposes to go with them:—'I'll follow ye to the world's end.' On which the eldest says to him—a half playful threat:—'You presumptious little atomy of a barebones, if I only see the size of a thrush's ankle of you follyin' us on the road, I'll turn back and bate that wiry and freckled little carcase of yours into frog's-jelly!' (Robert Dwyer Joyce: 'The Building of Mourne.')

'Did Johnny give you any of his sugar-stick?' 'Oh not very much indeed: hardly the size of a thrush's ankle.' This term is often used.

Of a very morose sour person you will hear it said:—'If that man looked at a pail of new milk he'd turn it into curds and whey.'

A very thin man, or one attenuated by sickness:—'You could blow him off your hand.'

A poor fellow complains of the little bit of meat he got for his dinner:—'It was no more than a daisy in a bull's mouth!' Another says of his dinner