SOME HIBERNICISMS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9025, 11 January 1908, Page 7

SOME HIBERNICISMS.

"First on the right, secon&on the left," the curt form of police direction said to be familiar to ears of Londoners, perhaps changes when one gets to Dublin. One hears something like this: "Well, Miss, d'ye see that turning to the left? Well, ye'll take no notice of that, but if • ye'll walk up a piece ye'll see another turning, and that'll bring ye right." The contrast is made by a writer in the "Pall Mall Gazette" to illustrate .the. volubility of the Irish. No doubt '/such superfluity of advice is rather v rare, like tho. repiy of a country policeman drafted to the town, to a "cyclist anxious to reach a certain road. "Well, sorr, first ye cross that bridge, and when ye come to the other side ye'll ask another policeman, for I'm from Catruciveen meself." The writer emphasises the point that the Irishman, when amusing English people by his drolleries of speech, is speaking in an alien tongue. He may never even have heard Irish spoken, but he will reproduce Celtic idioms in Saxon with surprising results. Some expressions of the lower classes are : unintelligible to the ordinary Englishman. "To lay the blame on" becomes "to leave it on," so when a transplanted Englishwoman asks her servant about a missing piece of food and Bridget replies, "I don't know where it's gone, ma'am; I left it on the cat," an explanation is 1 required. "Would ye trail your - coat-tails foment me. I've a right to hit ye!" says one man to another, meaning, not that he has a right to break his opponent's head, but "I've no right to hit you, but I'm going to institute that right." By the way, an Irishman does not say, as he does in English fiction and on the English stage, "Will ye be after tellin' me the time?" hut he would say, "Sure, I'm ju«t after bidding Mick the time of day." The expression is used only of past events. The writer notes the imagery of common expressions, such as "She has an eye like a coortin' hawk,!' and the natural piety of the Irish peasant. He refers everything to his Maker with absolute simplicity, a strong contrast to the awkward self-con-sciousness of the Britisher faced wi*h the necessity of mentioning his Creator on rare occasions. "A fine day thanks*be to God," or "A great -. little lad, God bless him!" are matjk ters of every-day speech and no praise is bestowed on man or beast without invoking a blessing to redeem the pride of ownership.