Beyond Sunday roasts and slick rainy streets… beyond lush green parks and Oscar Wilde preening on a rock…. beyond Viking boats and Jo Burger and College Green and Georgian doors, there’s another reason why I’ve been so stupid-happy to be back in Dublin. English. I get to speak English.
The Glory of the English Language
Your Hiberno-English Word For the Day
Today’s secret word is eejit. Its meaning will be pretty self-evident to any English speaker, but let’s see how it works. American-English: Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat, idiot. Hiberno-English: God, Jedward are a pair of awful eejits, aren’t they? Eejit: a word to be uttered with equal measures of passion and disgust. Just look […]
Your Hiberno-English Word of the Day
Today’s secret word is ridebag. American English: Dang, the new guy in Accounting is a total hottie. Hiberno English: Jaysus, the new guy in Accounting is a complete ridebag, isn’t he? Ridebag. I’m dying. I’m dying! Leave it to the Irish to blend wit and lust. Note: I’ve yet to hear this word used in […]
Your Hiberno-English Word of the Day
Today’s secret word is gorgeous. Let’s see how it works. American English: That sweater you got from KMart is pretty cute. Hiberno English: That jumper you’re after buying from Dunnes is just gorgeous! Got it? Cute/pleasing = gorgeous. That goes for budget clothes, people, objects, and behavior. I can be gorgeous if I feel like […]
The Poet
It’s Trinity Ball Night. That means Trinners students get to dust the cinders off their jeans and hop into a pumpkin for a memory-making night of music, drink, and elegant dress fun. Walking through College Green this evening, weaving through the six pack-clutching, tuxedo-clad Trinity Ball attendees, I stopped short when I saw this: If […]
Two Women, One Bus
On the 15A into City Centre, two women are sitting together, chatting gaily. It’s a sunny day. The bus bumps over the Grand Canal, heads up Aungier Street, makes a right on Harcourt Road past The Bleeding Horse pub. Woman 1: … and then she took them down to Disneyworld in Florida, you know. Sure, […]
Let the Ted Fest Begin
I’m not on the island of Inishmore for five minutes before I’ve learned how to say goodbye in Irish. An airport shuttle bus picks us up from the landing strip and the driver asks us for our passports; Inishmore, he says, has just broken off from the Republic of Ireland. Everyone on the shuttle bus […]
Feck Off, Cup
This post is your primer for the series of posts that follow: The Adventures of Liv on Inishmore During Ted Fest 2010. Ted fan? Enjoy the memories. Not yet a friend of Ted? Hold on to your arse biscuits, because you’re in for a treat. Father Ted, written by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, is […]
Spelling Bee
“I’m bored.” I say. “Can we play a game?” “Okay,” he says. “What do you want to play?” “How about shiritori?” “I don’t know; I’m off shiritori lately.” “Really? But it’s so much fun.” “Eh.” “How about another kind of spelling game then?” “Oh, bollocks. You know I can’t spell. Why don’t you spell words […]
Gab Gab Gab
From Johnnie Fox’s – a 211 year-old pub high up in the Dublin Mountains: I believe this is what they mean by the Irish gift of the gab.