Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/145

 130 wouldn't touch it with a tongs.’ Very common and always used in depreciation as here.

We in Ireland are much inclined to redundancy in our speech. It is quite observable—especially to an outsider—that even in our ordinary conversation and in answering simple questions we use more words than we need. We hardly ever confine ourselves to the simple English yes or no; we always answer by a statement. 'Is it raining, Kitty?' 'Oh no sir, it isn't raining at all.' 'Are you going to the fair to-day?' 'No indeed I am not.' 'Does your father keep on the old business still?' 'Oh yes certainly he does: how could he get on without it?' 'Did last night's storm injure your house?' 'Ah you may well say it did.' A very distinguished Dublin scholar and writer, having no conscious leanings whatever towards the Irish language, mentioned to me once that when he went on a visit to some friends in England they always observed this peculiarity in his conversation, and often laughed at his roundabout expressions. He remarked to me—and an acute remark it was—that he supposed there must be some peculiarity of this kind in the Irish language; in which conjecture he was quite correct. For this peculiarity of ours—like many others—is borrowed from the Irish language, as anyone may see for himself by looking through an Irish book of question and answer, such as a Catechism. 'Is the Son God?' 'Yes certainly He is.' 'Will God reward the good and punish the wicked?' 'Certainly: there is no doubt He will.' 'Did God always exist?' 'He did; because He has neither beginning nor end.' And questions and answers like these—from Donlevy's