| Jun. 13th, 2007 @ 01:52 pm The Language Barrier. |
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Some of my Irish mates occasionally take the piss out of my accent, but to the greater extent we tend to understand each other fairly well. Every once in a while, though, a word or phrase comes up that just baffles me.
1. "You alright?"
More than once I've snuck up to the bar to have the bartender give me the chin-jerk greeting and say, "You alright?" And more than once I've been struck by the sudden urge to look down confusedly and search for bleeding wounds that I may have been unaware of before ensuring said bartender that, "I'm fine, why...?"
As it turns out, "You alright?" is a lot more along the same lines as "Can I help you?" and the correct response is not to assume they're concerned with your well-being, so much as it is, "Pint of Guinness, please."
2. "Oh, it was some good crack." "What's the crack?" "How's the crack?"
Upon first arriving in Ireland, one might assume that it is a country populated almost entirely hardcore drug-users. When someone first asked me "How's the crack?" or insisted that their night out was "good crack" I was a bit confused. Being someone who has never even smoked pot before, it's pretty surprising to discover that everyone here is so into coke...
As it turns out, it isn't actually spelt "crack," it's "craic." And it means, generally, like... fun.
"What's the craic?" : What's up?
"It was good craic.": It was a lot of fun.
"How's the craic?" : How's it going?
3. "Toilets."
Wandering through a popular grocery store here, I stopped a woman working there and asked, "Hi there, sorry, could you tell me where the washroom is?"
"....the what?"
"... the bathroom?"
"...."
"Toilets?"
"Oh, the toilets! Yeah, the toilets are through there and to the left."
Evidently, "bathroom" and "washroom" are not used. When you gotta go, you are going to the TOILETS, and that's final.
4. "What, so you're not any good like?"
There is something about Irish slang that means that they add "like" to the end of sentences incessantly where it doesn't need to be.. I guess in the same way we add "eh" to the end of ours?
Conversation:
"Yeah, you should come and play rugby with us."
"Ohhh, I don't think soooo..."
"What, so you're not any good, like?"
Alright, there are a ton more, but that's enough for now! |
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