Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/99

 84 is merely a translation of the Irish word for to-day—andiu, where an is 'the' and diu a form of the Irish for 'day.'

The use of the singular of nouns instead of the plural after a numeral is found all through Ireland. Tom Cassidy our office porter—a Westmeath man—once said to me 'I'm in this place now forty-four year': and we always use such expressions as nine head of cattle. A friend of mine, a cultivated and scholarly clergyman, always used phrases like 'that bookcase cost thirteen pound.' This is an old English survival. Thus in Macbeth we find 'this three mile.' But I think this phraseology has also come partly under the influence of our Gaelic in which ten and numerals that are multiples of ten always take the singular of nouns, as tri-caogad laoch, 'thrice fifty heroes'—lit. 'thrice fifty hero.'

In the south of Ireland may is often incorrectly used for might, even among educated people:—'Last week when setting out on my long train journey, I brought a book that I may read as I travelled along.' I have heard and read, scores of times, expressions of which this is a type—not only among the peasantry, but from newspaper correspondents, professors, &c.—and you can hear and read them from Munstermen to this day in Dublin.

In Ulster till is commonly used instead of to:—'I am going till Belfast to-morrow': in like manner until is used for unto.

There are two tenses in English to which there is nothing corresponding in Irish:—what is sometimes called the perfect—'I have finished my work'; and the pluperfect—'I had finished my work' [before you