Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/53

38 ‘Show me that knife,’ i.e. hand it to me. ‘Show me the cream, please,’ says an Irish gentleman at a London restaurant; and he could not see why his English friends were laughing.

‘He passed me in the street by the way he didn't know me’; ‘he refused to give a contribution by the way he was so poor.’ In both, by the way means ‘pretending.’

‘My own own people’ means my immediate relations. This is a translation of mo mhuinterse féin. In Irish the repetition of the emphatic pronominal particles is very common, and is imported into English; represented here by ‘own own.’

A prayer or a wish in Irish often begins with the particle go, meaning ‘that’ (as a conjunction): Go raibh maith agut, ‘that it may be well with you,’ i.e. ‘May it be well with you.’ In imitation or translation of this the corresponding expression in English is often opened by this word that: ‘that you may soon get well,’ i.e., ‘may you soon get well.’ Instead of ‘may I be there to see’ (John Gilpin) our people would say ‘that I may be there to see.’ A person utters some evil wish such as ‘may bad luck attend you,’ and is answered ‘that the prayer may happen the preacher.’ A usual ending of a story told orally, when the hero and heroine have been comfortably disposed of is ‘And if they don't live happy that we may.’

When a person sees anything unusual or unexpected, he says to his companion, ‘Oh do you mind that!’

‘You want me to give you £10 for that cow: well, I'm not so soft all out.’ ‘He's not so bad as that all out.’