Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/50

CH. IV.] iad sin na buachaillidhe. ‘Oh she melted the hearts of the swains in them parts.’ (‘The Widow Malone,’ by Lever.)

In like manner with the pronouns sé, sí (he, she), of which the accusatives é and í are in certain Irish constructions (correctly) used for the nominative forms, which accusative forms are (incorrectly) imported into English. Do chonnairc mé Seadhán agus é n'a shuidhe, ‘I saw Shaun and him sitting down,' i.e. 'as he was sitting down.’ So also ‘don't ask me to go and me having a sore foot.’ ‘There's the hen and her as fat as butter,’ i.e. ‘she (the hen) being as fat as butter.’

The little phrase ‘the way’ is used among us in several senses, all peculiar, and all derived from Irish. Sometimes it is a direct translation from amhlaidh (‘thus,’ ‘so,’ ‘how,’ ‘in a manner’). An old example of this use of amhlaidh in Irish is the following passage from the Boroma (Silva Gadelica):—Is amlaid at chonnaic [Concobar] Laigin ocus Ulaid mán dabaig ocá hól: ‘It is how (or ‘the way’) [Concobar] saw the Lagenians and the Ulstermen [viz. they were] round the vat drinking from it.’ Is amhlaidh do bhi Fergus: ‘It is thus (or the way) Fergus was [conditioned; that his shout was heard over three cantreds].’

This same sense is also seen in the expression, ‘this is the way I made my money,’ i.e. ‘this is how I made it.’

When this expression, ‘the way,’ or ‘how,’ introduces a statement it means ‘’tis how it happened.’ ‘What do you want, James?’ ‘’Tis the way ma'am, my mother sent me for the loan of the