Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/183

 168 times I heard such expressions as the following:—'Ah shut that door: there's a breeze in through it that would perish the Danes.'

The cardinal points are designated on the supposition that the face is turned to the east: a custom which has descended in Ireland from the earliest times of history and tradition, and which also prevailed among other ancient nations. Hence in Irish 'east' is 'front'; 'west' is 'behind' or 'back'; north is 'left hand'; and south is 'right hand.' The people sometimes import these terms into English. 'Where is the tooth?' says the dentist. 'Just here sir, in the west of my jaw,' replies the patient—meaning at the back of the jaw.

Tailors were made the butt of much good-natured harmless raillery, often founded on the well-known fact that a tailor is the ninth part of a man. If a person leaves little after a meal, or little material after any work—that is 'tailor's leavings'; alluding to an alleged custom of the craft. According to this calumny your tailor, when sending home your finished suit, sends with it a few little scraps as what was left of the cloth you gave him, though he had really much left, which he has cribbed.

When you delay the performance of any work, or business with some secret object in view, you 'put the pot in the tailor's link.' Formerly tailors commonly worked in the houses of the families who bought their own material and employed them to make the clothes. The custom was to work till supper time, when their day ended. Accordingly the good housewife often hung the pot-hangers on the highest hook or link of the pot-hooks so as to raise