Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/137

 122 when it was in his stomach:—'It was no more than a midge in the Glen of the Downs.'

Exhorting a messenger to be quick:—'Don't be there till you're back again.' Another way:—'Now run as quick as you can, and if you fall don't wait to get up.' Warning a person to be expeditious in any work you put him to:—'Now don't let grass grow under your feet.' Barney urging on the ass to go quickly:—'Come Bobby, don't let grass grow under your feet.' ('Knocknagow.')

If a person is secretly very willing to go to a place—as a lover to the house of the girl's parents:—‘You could lead him there with a halter of snow.’

‘Is this razor sharp?’ ‘Sharp!—why ’twould shave a mouse asleep.’

A lazy fellow, fond of sitting at the fire, has the A B C on his shins, i.e. they are blotched with the heat.

Of an inveterate talker:—That man would talk the teeth out of a saw.

A young fellow gets a great fright:—'It frightened him out of a year's growth.'

When Nancy saw the master so angry she was frightened out of her wits: or frightened out of her seven senses. When I saw the horse ride over him I was frightened out of my life.

A great liar, being suddenly pressed for an answer, told the truth for once. He told the truth because he was shook for a lie; i.e. no lie was ready at hand. Shook, to be bad, in a bad way: shook for a thing, to be badly in want of it and not able to get it.

Of a very lazy fellow:—He would not knock a coal off his foot: i.e. when a live coal happens to