Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/54

CH. IV.] A common expression is ‘I was talking to him to-day, and I drew down about the money,’ i.e. I brought on or introduced the subject. This is a translation of the Irish form do tharraing memé [sic] anuas ‘I drew down.’

Quite a common form of expression is ‘I had like to be killed,’ i.e., I was near being killed: I had a narrow escape of being killed: I escaped being killed by the black of my nail.

Where the English say it rains, we say ‘it is raining’: which is merely a translation of the Irish way of saying it:—ta setá sé [sic] ag fearthainn.

The usual Gaelic equivalent of 'he gave a roar' is do léig sé géim as (met everywhere in Irish texts), ‘he let a roar out of him’; which is an expression you will often hear among people who have not well mastered English—who in fact often speak the Irish language with English words.

‘I put it before me to do it,’ meaning I was resolved to do it, is the literal translation of chuireas rómhaim é todo [sic] dheunamh. Both Irish and Anglo-Irish are very common in the respective languages.

When a narrator has come to the end of some minor episode in his narrative, he often resumes with the opening ‘That was well and good’: which is merely a translation of the Gaelic bhí sin go maith.

Lowry Looby having related how the mother and daughter raised a terrible pillilu, i.e., ‘roaring and bawling,’ says after a short pause ‘that was well and good,’ and proceeds with his story. (Gerald Griffin: ‘Collegians.’)

A common Irish expression interjected into a narrative or discourse, as a sort of stepping stone