Patrick Weston Joyce

“ I think this vulgarism is heard among the English peasantry too: though we have the honour and glory of evolving it independently.
All over Ireland you will hear the words vault and fault sounded vaut and faut. 'If I don't be able to shine it will be none of my faut.' (Carleton, as cited by Hume.) We have retained this sound from old English:
Let him not dare to vent his dangerous thought: A noble fool was never in a fault [faut] . (Pope, cited by Hume.) Goldsmith uses this pronunciation more than once ”

“ In this the day 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. ”

“ 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 arrived] . The Irish people in general do not use—or know how to use—these in their English speech; but they feel the want of them, and use various expedients to supply their places. ”

“ Squeeze is pronounced squeedge and crush scroodge in Donegal and elsewhere; but corruptions like these are found among the English peasantry—as may be seen in Dickens.
'You had better rinsh that glass' is heard everywhere in Ireland: an old English survival; for Shakespeare and Lovelace have renched for rinced (Lowell) : which with the Irish sound of short e before n gives us our word rinshed.
Such words as old, cold, hold are pronounced by the Irish people ould, cowld, hould (or howlt) ; gold is sounded goold and ford foord. ”

“ Punch represents an Irish waiter with hand on dish-cover, asking:—'Will I sthrip ma'am?'
What is called the regular formation of the past tense (in ed) is commonly known as the weak inflection:—call, called: the irregular formation (by changing the vowel) is the strong inflection:—run, ran. In old English the strong inflection appears to have been almost universal; but for some hundreds of years the English tendency is to replace strong by weak inflection. ”

“ Onion is among our people always pronounced ingion: constantly heard in Dublin. 'Go out Mike for the ingions,' as I once heard a woman say in Limerick.
'Men are of different opinions, Some like leeks and some like ingions.' This is old English; 'in one of Dodsley's plays we have onions rhyming with minions' (Lowell.)
The general English tendency is to put back the accent as far from the end of the word as possible. But among our people there is a contrary tendency—to throw forward the accent ”

“ In Irish there is only one article, an, which is equivalent to the English definite article the. This article (an) is much more freely used in Irish than the is in English, a practice which we are inclined to imitate in our Anglo-Irish speech. Our use of the often adds a sort of emphasis to the noun or adjective:—'Ah John was the man,' i.e. the real man, a man pre-eminent for some quality—bravery, generosity, &c. ”

“ When I was a boy I once heard one of the old schoolmasters reading out, in his grandiloquent way, for the people grouped round Ardpatrick chapel gate after Mass, his formidable prospectus of the subjects he could teach, among which were 'the raddiation of light and heat and the vibrations of swinging pen-joo ́lums.' The same fine old scholarly pedant once remarked that our neighbourhood was a very moun-taan ́-yus locality. ”

“ At the time of the Bulgarian massacres, I knew a Dublin doctor, a Tipperary man, who felt very strongly on the subject and was constantly talking about the poor Bullugarians.
In the County Monaghan and indeed elsewhere in Ireland, us is sounded huz, which might seem a Cockney vulgarism, but I think it is not. In Roscommon and in the Munster counties a thong is called a fong.
Chaw for chew, oncet [wonst] for once, twiced for twice, and heighth, sighth, for height, sight, which are common in Ireland, are all old English survivals. ”

“ I think this is a remnant of the old classical teaching of Munster: though indeed I ought to mention that the same tendency is found in Monaghan, where on every possible occasion the people give this sound to long a.
D before long u is generally sounded like j; as in projuce for produce: the Juke of Wellington, &c. Many years ago I knew a fine old gentleman from Galway. He wished to make people believe that in the old fighting times, when he was a young man, he was a desperate gladiaathor; but he really was a gentle creature who never in all his born days hurt man or mortal. ”

“ MacCall states that it is unknown in the barony of Forth: there you always hear 'that man have plenty of money'—he have—she have, &c.
The Rev. William Burke tells us that have is found as above (a third person singular) all through the old Waterford Bye-Laws; which would render it pretty certain that both have and do in these applications are survivals from the old English colony in Waterford and Wexford. ”

“ It appears that in correct old English er was sounded ar—Dryden rhymes certain with parting—and this is still retained in correct English in a few words, like sergeant, clerk, &c. Our people retain the old sound in most such words, as sarvant, marchant, sartin. But sometimes in their anxiety to avoid this vulgarity, they overdo the refinement: so that you will hear girls talk mincingly about derning a stocking. ”

“ A similar statement may be made regarding the diphthong ei and long e, that is to say, they were both formerly sounded like long a in fate.
'Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece.' (Pope: 'Essay on Man.') In the same essay Pope rhymes sphere with fair, showing that he pronounced it sphaire. ”