Talk:List of English words of Irish origin

Is there a distinction to be drawn between Hiberno-English words, i.e. only understood within Ireland, and words originating in Ireland but now part of standard English? Since the former may be listed on that page, is there a need to list them here too, or indeed should they be moved here?

As stated, crack is not originally Irish; similarly smithereens is from English smithers with Irish diminutive suffix -een.

Some of the origins seem dubious folk etymologies .

Have added "Tory" (robber, outlaw) -- couldn't resist it -- but I agree with the comments above to the effect that the list as it stands is a bit of a hotchpotch... -- Picapica 21:40, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• I think that there should probably be two different pages; one for words that have passed from the Irish language and the Irish language alone into the English of other countries; and one to list expressions, regardless of their origin, that are currently or in the past were in currency in Ireland. (There are plenty of words-- ludán and latchico come to mind-- that are hardly never heard but on the tongues of those of Irish decent. IINAG 10:22, 4 July 2005 (UTC)

Sources

An editor (it doesn't matter who) recently added a bunch of edits speculating on the origins of some of these words. While I think much of the additions are dubious, it occured to me as I considered reverting that none of this article, or very little, is sourced or references. As such I added the {{{sources}}} template, and will leave it be, but as of now it is a mix of possibly useful information and outright misinformation, casting doubt on the whole thing. -- Gnetwerker 18:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Crack

Crack or rather crak is a Scots word, which found its way into Irish Gaelic under the spelling of craic. It probably came to Ireland with the Plantation of Ulster and as many other Scots words has become part of everyday speak by both sides of the community such as other Scots words like scundered, foundered, thieving, plastered etc. Mabuska 23:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Sections

Would it be a good idea to separate the list into sections alphabetically? akarkera 09:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I (and others I hope) think so, and now added. User:SeanMacGC 21:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

SLC a questionable source?

Since the book SLC is written by someone with an obvious bias, that represents a questionable source and should only be accepted where it can be backed by other reputable sources (OED etc).

Caca from Irish? - only to someone who never studied Latin! I wonder if some of these "Irish" words are actually derived from words in other languages, such as Latin, and SLC fails to realize the historic origins. Michael Daly 20:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I have used SLC as a reference, where SLC itself will in turn have used the OED and Dineen (inter alia) as references. I would take issue with the 'obvious bias' comment, have you actually read the book? I would interpret this as something of a slur on the academic integrity of the author, whose book has just been awarded the American Book Award for Nonfiction. There's a difference between obvious interest and obvious bias.

Doubtless that Latin is at the root of many words in many languages, but this topic concerns the specific (Gaelic) route of any word's path into the English Language, not necessarily the ab initio manifestation. User:SeanMacGC 10:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I should have said obvious interest - nonetheless, such an award is not necessarily an acknowledgement of quality of research, only of presentation.

I won't buy the immediate assumption that since Latin-Irish-English is possible that it is necessarily the only or the prominent route. Some of these derivations seem a little too contrived, and the most contrived seem to have SLC as the source. Hence my scepticism. Michael Daly 20:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it be no coincidence that the "most contrived" are also the most numerous... by far. By simple force of numbers is it not unreasonable that there will be a majority of apparent 'contrived' derivations? Here is the entry for "caca" in full, literatim, verbatim, from SLC:

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Caca, n., excrement, shit; often used as a euphemism in presence of children.
Caca, gen. as attrib.adj. of cac, excrement, filth;fig. shit; rud caca, a dirty, shitty thing. (Dineen, 145.)

The Irish cac and caca are probably derived from the Latin caco, to void excrement. (Cassell's Latin-English Dictionary, 76.) Seamus an Chaca (Seamus the Shit) was the moniker given to James II of England, a royal "chicken" caca, who abandoned his beleaguered Irish army on the Boyne River in June 1690.

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There are few entries in SLC that do not have a similarly expansive etymological derivation -- what I have furnished so far on this topic are merely the distilled results, not the rationale and reasoning behind those derivations; Professor Cassidy has provided those.

User:SeanMacGC 10:50, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

But none of that shows that the word entered English from Irish and not directly from Latin. If Latin influenced both English and Irish, that proves nothing about any purported link between Irish and English. It would take a greater bit of detective work to demonstrate that Irish speakers popularized the word in the greater English community in several regions (e.g. England and America). Parallel and serial are two very different things. Cassidy wouldn't be the first to "prove" how his favourite culture influenced the world by showing coincidences.

As far as the number of examples coming from SLC, a good bit of this article looks like it is just copied from the book. That is not scholarship on the part of this article, just plagiarism. Hence my comment on requiring second sources stands - unless this is independently verified, it does not make for a good article entry. Michael Daly 16:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Cassidy has quoted references, how that can be interpreted as plagiarism is quite beyond me... that's what reference books are for! England and America, the two destinations in the world that the Irish emigrated to in greatest numbers, coincidence? And caca was in the Irish language when those same people emigrated -- there was no caca in English before that, fact. Timelines are important here. Incidentally, SLC has been peer reviewed, fully. User:SeanMacGC 21:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SeanMacGC (talk • contribs)

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Block and bealach make no sense. Bealach means way or route (e.g. a (now-small) road in Kerry is called an bealach béama - the "main route), whereas in geographic terms "block" arrived on the scene due to the way modern US cities were built - in regular shaped blocks. While the author of SLC may have found references to support his conclusions, I doubt the applicability of the references he's found based on the examples shown here. As someone from Ireland, a lot of this looks like a massive stretch. 84.12.111.19 11:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)