Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/42

CH. IV.] 'I took the medicine according to the doctor's order, but I found myself nothing the better of it.' 'You have a good time of it.' I find in Dickens however (in his own words) that the wind 'was obviously determined to make a night of it.' (See p. 10 for a peculiarly Irish use of of it.)

In the Irish poem Bean na d-Tri m-Bo, 'The Woman of Three Cows,' occurs the expression, As do bhólacht ná bí teann, 'Do not be haughty out of your cattle.' This is a form of expression constantly heard in English:—'he is as proud as a peacock out of his rich relations.' So also, 'She has great thought out of him,' i.e. She has a very good opinion of him. (Queen's Co.)

'I am without a penny,' i.e. I haven't a penny: very common: a translation from the equally common Irish expression, tá me gan pinghín.

In an Irish love song the young man tells us that he had been vainly trying to win over the colleen le bliadhain agus le lá, which Petrie correctly (but not literally) translates 'for a year and for a day.' As the Irish preposition le signifies with, the literal translation would be 'with a year and with a day,' which would be incorrect English. Yet the uneducated people of the South and West often adopt this translation; so that you will hear such expressions as 'I lived in Cork with three years.'

There is an idiomatic use of the Irish preposition air, 'on,' before a personal pronoun or before a personal name and after an active verb, to intimate injury or disadvantage of some kind, a violation of right or claim. Thus, Do bhuail Seumas mo ghadhar orm [where orm is air me], 'James struck my dog