Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/153

 138 He has a face as yellow as a kite's claw. (Crofton Croker: but heard everywhere.)

Jerry in his new clothes is as proud as a whitewashed pig. (MacCall: Wexford.)

That man is as old as a field. (Common in Tipperary.)

'Are you well protected in that coat?' 'Oh yes I'm as warm as wool.' (Very common in the south.)

Idle for want of weft like the Drogheda weavers. Said of a person who runs short of some necessary material in doing any work. (Limerick.)

I watched him as closely as a cat watches a mouse.

He took up the book; but seeing the owner suddenly appear, he dropped it like a hot potato.

'You have a head and so has a pin,' to express contempt for a person's understanding.

How are your new stock of books selling? Oh they are going like hot cakes. Hot cakes are a favourite viand, and whenever they are brought to table disappear quickly enough.

He's as poor as a church mouse.

A person expressing love mockingly:—'Come into my heart and pick sugar.'

An extremely thin emaciated person is like death upon wires; alluding to a human skeleton held together by wires.

Oh you need never fear that Mick O'Brien will cheat you: Mick is as honest as the sun.

A person who does not persevere in any one study or pursuit, who is perpetually changing about from one thing to another, is 'like a daddy-long-legs dancing on a window.'