Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/157

 142 The story went round like wildfire: i.e. circulated rapidly.

Of a person very thin:—He's 'as fat as a hen in the forehead.'

A man is staggering along—not with drink:—That poor fellow is 'drunk with hunger like a showman's dog.'

Dick and Bill are 'as great as inkle-weavers:' a saying very common in Limerick and Cork. Inkle is a kind of broad linen tape: a Shakespearian word. 'Several pieces of it were formerly woven in the same loom, by as many boys, who sat close together on the same seat-board.' (Dr. A. Hume.)

William is 'the spit out of his father's mouth'; i.e. he is strikingly like his father either in person or character or both. Another expression conveying the same sense:—'Your father will never die while you are alive': and 'he's a chip off the old block.' Still another, though not quite so strong:—'He's his father's son.' Another saying to the same effect—'kind father for him'—is examined elsewhere.

'I'm a man in myself like Oliver's bull,' a common saying in my native place (in Limerick), and applied to a confident self-helpful person. The Olivers were the local landlords sixty or seventy years ago. (For a tune with this name see my 'Old Irish Music and Songs,' p. 46.)

A person is asked to do any piece of work which ought to be done by his servant:—'Aye indeed, keep a dog and bark myself.'

That fellow walks as straight up and stiff as if he took a breakfast of ramrods.

A man who passes through many dangers or