Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/281


 * Gor; the coarse turf or peat which forms the surface of the bog. (Healy: for Ulster.)


 * Gorb; a ravenous eater, a glutton. (Ulster.)


 * Gorsoon: a young boy. It is hard to avoid deriving this from French garçon, all the more as it has no root in Irish. Another form often used is gossoon, which is derived from Irish:—gas, a stem or stalk, a young boy. But the termination oon or ún is suspicious in both cases, for it is not a genuine Irish suffix at all.


 * Gossip; a sponsor in baptism.


 * Goster; gossipy talk. Irish gastairĕ, a prater, a chatterer. 'Dermot go 'long with your goster.' (Moore—in his youth.)


 * Gouloge; a stick with a little fork of two prongs at the end, for turning up hay, or holding down furze while cutting. (South.) Used in the North often in the form of gollog. Irish gabhal [gowl], a fork, with the dim. óg.


 * Gounau; housewife [huzzif] thread, strong thread for sewing, pack thread. Irish gabhshnáth (Fr. Dinneen), same sound and meaning: from snáth, a thread: but how comes in gabh? In one of the Munster towns I knew a man who kept a draper's shop, and who was always called Gounau, in accordance with the very reprehensible habit of our people to give nicknames.


 * Goureen-roe: a snipe, a jacksnipe. (Munster.) Irish gabhairín-reó, the 'little goat of the frost' (reó, frost): because on calm frosty evenings you hear its quivering sound as it flies in the twilight, very like the sound emitted by a goat.


 * Gra, grah; love, fondness, liking. Irish grádh [