Lexicon Hiberno-English

Lexicon

§     Something banjaxed is broken, ruined, or rendered incapable of use. As in "My mobile's been banjaxed since I dropped it."

§     Bjore Attractive female.

§     Boot used to describe an unattractive girl,

§     Cat – bad, terrible. (from catastrophic). "The weather is cat isn't it?"

§     Cod, a joke, ridiculous, can also be used on a person. "This fella is a cod."

§     College is used in a way similar to American English. In Ireland college can be used to refer to any third-level institution, university or not.

§     Craic or crack is fun, a good time, good company, good atmosphere and conversation. If you are enjoying yourself, it is good craic.

§     Cub – means a young child

§     Da  slang for father, as in "Me da doesn't do too well at the horses!"

§     Draw - To infuse tea, 'Let the tea draw'.

§     Fair play –"Fair play to him" meaning "Well done to him", or "Good for him."

§     Footpath  pavement  and sidewalk in American English.

§     Geebag –bastard. "She's a total geebag."

§     Give out (to someone) – to tell someone off, to scold a person,

§     Gombeen  corrupt activity.

§     Gomey –a worthless individual, a fool e.g. "You're nothing but a gomey, like!".

§     Howeya – A contraction of "How are you", most often used as a greeting

§     Jacks – toilet. Cf. American English "john". "Here lads, I'm off to the jacks.

§     Lack –slang for girlfriend,

§     Langer - a penis, or  someone who is a fool/idiot/dislikeable person.

§     Meet –kiss, oral sex, or full coitus.

§     Runners or tackies, or in the north gutties, refers to "trainers"

§     Shift – to kiss, generally with tongues or to have sex or both.

§     Sláinte is an Irish word meaning "health".

§     Strand – commonly used instead of "beach".

§     Wan – A woman.

§     Wojus –hateful, horrible

§     Your (often pronounce "yer") - "yer wan" or "yer man" refers to the person in question. "look at yer man". There is also "yer/your only man" (for doing some job), which is a compliment.

Hiberno-English

Grammar derived from Irish

1.      Hiberno-English uses "yes" and "no" less frequently than other English dialects.

§                     "Are you coming home soon?" – "I am."

§                     "Is your mobile charged?" – "It's not."

2.      Some Irish speakers of English, especially in rural areas, use the verb "to be" using a "does be/do be" (or "bees", although less frequently) construction to indicate this latter continuous present:

§                     "He does be working every day." 

§                     "They do be talking on their mobiles a lot." 

§                     "He does be doing a lot of work at school." 

§                     "It's him I do be thinking of." 

3.      Irish has separate forms for the second person singular (tú) and the second person plural (sibh). The plural you is also distinguished from the singular in Hiberno-English, normally by use of the otherwise archaic English word ye [ji]; the word yous (sometimes written as youse) .. In addition, in some areas the hybrid word ye-s, pronounced "yis", may be used.

§                     "Did ye all go to see it?" 

§                     "None of youse have a clue!" 

§                     "Are ye not finished yet?" 

§                     "Yis are after destroying it!" 

4.      Conditionals have a greater presence in Hiberno-English due to the tendency to replace the simple present tense with the conditional (would) and the simple past tense with the conditional perfect (would have).

§                     "John asked me would I buy a loaf of bread." (John asked me to buy a loaf of bread.)

§                     "How do you know him? We would have been in school together." (We went to school together.)

5.      The verb mitch is very common in Ireland, indicating being truant from school.

6.      Amn't is used as an abbreviation of "am not", by analogy with isn't and aren't. This can be used as a tag question ("I'm making a mistake, amn't I?"), or as an alternative to I'm not ("I amn't joking"),

7.      Arra is used also and may be translated as "alright, yes/no". The word yerra is also used.

8.      It is common to add the word Hey onto the end of sentences for emphasis-for example a person could say "Are you going into town, hey?"

9.      So is often used for emphasis ("I can speak Irish, so I can"), or it may be tacked on to the end of a sentence to indicate agreement, where "then" would often be used in Standard English ("Bye so", "Let's go so", "That's fine so", "We'll do that so"). The word is also used to contradict a negative statement ("You're not pushing hard enough" – "I am so!"). (This contradiction of a negative is also seen in American English, though not as often as "I am too", or "Yes, I am".)

10.  Yer man (your man) and Yer wan/one (your one,female) are used in referring to an individual other than the speaker and the person spoken to.