Pocket mouse idiom full#

Translations are in vernacular British English, not in ‘Received’ English.

If an item’s meaning is obvious, no translation is given.

I’m a foreigner and only speak Irish-English as a foreign language, so please excuse (and correct) any mistranslations.

Picturesque traditional sayings are welcome as long as they’re genuinely in current usage.It contains no items that appear to be cod Irish (like ‘begorrah’), as I haven’t come across them in real life. Items on the list are all taken from contemporary Irish novels or writings, or from real-life sources such as televised horse racing and The Racing Post.(Almost) no item is too rude or slangy for inclusion. It includes commonly used Irish English words, phrases, usages, turns of phrase and sayings.Hoorah for Irish English! Some Notes About the Dictionary Little did I realise when I began how inexhaustible the flow of Irishisms would be. Now it contains getting on for five hundred items. Luckily, Fluent in 3 Months liked the developing ‘dictionary’ and found a niche for it here on its blog.

When it reached seven pages long, I felt I wanted to share it with the wider world, and looked to find it a good home. In 2016 I decided that I’d start to write these down – just for my own enjoyment. Jumps racing – a field which has a big Irish component – has also provided me with many choice examples of Irish English over the years. I read a lot of modern Irish novels, and writers such as best-seller Marian Keyes, and Emer Mclysaght and Sarah Breen of the Aisling novels fame, provide a host of delightful Irishisms in their books. I’m English, but I love Ireland, the Irish, and they way they talk. Irish English is racy, funny, dashing, bold, rude, picturesque – a pleasure to read or hear. Introduction to an Irish English Dictionary “They’re ferocious rough out here altogether” “The three of us are in ribbons, laughing” “I went through him for a short cut” “Northern Ireland is falling down with mountains, isn’t it?” “It doesn’t knock a fidget out of him” “Will you pour the tea there, love? The cat has me handicapped”.

Pocket mouse idiom full#

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