Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/63

48 ‘on its foot,’ modern form air a chois) one-sixth after being dried, &c. In one place a fine is mentioned for appropriating or cutting furze if it be ‘on foot.’ (Br. Laws.)

This mode of speaking is applied in old documents to animals also. Thus in one of the old Tales is mentioned a present of a swine and an ox on foot (for a coiss, ‘on their foot’) to be given to Mac Con and his people, i.e. to be sent to them alive—not slaughtered. (Silva Gadelica.) But I have not come across this application in our modern Irish-English.

To give a thing 'for God's sake,' i.e. to give it in charity or for mere kindness, is an expression very common at the present day all over Ireland. ‘Did you sell your turf-rick to Bill Fennessy?’ Oh‘Oh [sic] no, I gave it to him for God's sake: he's very badly off now poor fellow, and I'll never miss it.’ Our office attendant Charlie went to the clerk, who was chary of the pens, and got a supply with some difficulty. He came back grumbling:—‘A person would think I was asking them for God's sake’ (a thoroughly Hibernian sentence). This expression is common also in Irish, both ancient and modern, from which the English is merely a translation. Thus in the Brehon Laws we find mention of certain young persons being taught a trade ‘for God's sake’ (ar Dia), i.e. without fee: and in another place a man is spoken of as giving a poor person something ‘for God's sake.’

The word ’nough, shortened from enough, is always used in English with the possessive pronouns, in accordance with the Gaelic construction in such phrases as gur itheadar a n-doithin díobh, ‘So that