I’ll start with an apology to readers – content from me has been light this week as I’ve been fighting what we would call in Monaghan an absolute hoo-er of a dose. Ideally, of course, I’d like to blame the staff here at Gript since we had our Christmas Party on Saturday night and I fell properly ill on Sunday, but in truth I think I’ve been coming down with something for a while. Save your sympathies in any case for Mrs. McGuirk – I am the world’s most insufferable patient, and she’s had the unfortunate task of putting up with my moaning all week.
I do always think, incidentally, that regional variations in language in Ireland are fascinating and entertaining. Growing up in Monaghan, the word “whore”, pronounced “hoo-er” or “hoor” was one I learned as a negative – but not especially shocking – adjective years before I became aware what the actual word meant or referred to. My wife, a proud Kerrywoman, to this day finds trips to the border region complicated simply on account of the dialect and the use of words. My father once, in her company, referred to a family friend as “being for the high jump”. She had no idea that this meant that the young man was to be married. When I lived in rural Galway for a few years, I was struck by the number of sentences that would commence with the words “’tis how”. Don’t even ask me to understand what they’re talking about in Waterford or Donegal, half the time.
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