Where Bulls Are Broadest?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 112, 15 August 1941, Page 5

Where Bulls Are Broadest?

HY do bulls grow broadest in Irish pastures? Sir Richard Steele thinks that "it must be something in the atmosphere of the country. Probably if an Englishman were a native of Ireland he would do the same." Maria Edgeworth thought it was due to "the fact that English is not the mother tongue of the Irish." To think in one language and speak in another causes literal translations which sometimes give a quaint twist to a phrase. Well, there are other foreign languages. Why should there not be other bulls as well? For instance, an Indian babu sent a telégram announcing the death of his mother thus, "the hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket.’ Is that an Indian bull? ‘It is undoubtedly true that the influence of the Gaelic gives a rich flavour of whimsicality to the talk of the Irish, and we must look deeper for an explanation of the bull. Psychologists claim that they can explain it. Why not? Shurey they can give an explanation of anything, if they can’t, they can invent one! Here is what one of them says: " Psychology divides people into concrete thinkers and verbal thinkers, ‘thing’ thinkers and ‘word’ thinkers. . . . Some speakers talk entirely in the abstract, others use metaphors and; simniles and paint a vivid picture with every | phrase they utter." For example, there is a sentence from a student’s essay, " The germ of a new literature has dawned in this strange vein of poetry." Try to picture a microbe dawning like the daylight in the blood vessel and you will realise that. such a writer could never have visualised the meaning of the words that his ear has strung together.("Bulls from Irish Pastures," Rev. A. H. Acheson, 3YA, July 26.)