Irish in the UK - what are the things that it took you ages to realise people don't say here.

[ConflictedCheetah]

Inspired by the thread about Pancake Tuesday.

That thread has cracked me up because SO many posters are insisting no one EVER calls pancake Tuesday - it's Pancake Day - and sayu it's weird and wanky to call it that. And then all the Irish people on the thread are like ' wait, we've always called it that and never noticed that no one else did.

So what else you got?

For me, and I'm here 20 years, I only found out about a year ago that no one here calls a birth certificate a 'birth cert'. My English husband thought it was proper weird that I kept saying that. I had never picked up that it wasn't a thing! I think Irish people are so used to talking about the Leaving Cert or Junior Cert etc. that the Cert but feels natural. DH says no.

What other ways have I been unknowingly embarrassing myself for 20 years?

I've heard/read it as not feeling too clever which is pretty self explanatory.

Yes often, but not always, used with 'feeling' or 'looking '. And sometimes 'none' rather than 'not'.

Wow! There's an Anglican hymn, "My Song is Love Unknown," which has a verse about how Jesus was rejected in His lifetime. It contains the lines: "But men made strange, and none // The longed-for Christ would know." I've always been a little puzzled by that, and now I wonder if it's linked to the Irish expression.

I knew that I'd heard it somewhere, thank you!

I took it to mean ignore.

I thought of that hymn too - I'd assumed (from that) that it meant something like 'not want to have anything to do with someone' or 'treat like a (hostile) stranger'.

Loving this thread - really interesting re the uses of 'cute' (does it come from 'acute', as in sharp, perhaps?) and 'clever'.

YES!!

My husband absolutely cracked up when I first said this. I mean, not used anywhere much any more but every time I mention going to a bank he laughs and asks if I'm going to "lodge" something.

I'm English but this list is bringing back a lot of memories from my time staying in Ireland!

Press is an old English word for cupboard, as in Linen Press. I come from a family of antique dealers and in that world, most cupboards are called presses. I can only imagine that it comes from folding your linen and stacking it in the press so it comes out neatly ironed - a press has shelves, a cupboard often doesn't.

Here it's always Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day. Pancake Tuesday just sounds like a hybrid of the two.

It's floor inside and ground outside. Never heard anything else in England.

I think 'n'all is quite common in the west country as is the use of 'grand' but both are very familiar to me. Also 'We're away" is commonly used around here.

'Going for a run' meant taking the car out back in the 1970s but I don't think I have heard it used in that context since I left school. Now it would definitely mean literally going for a run on your own two feet!

A turnip is a small white root vegetable, a swede is a Swedish turnip and is yellow and sweeter than the traditional English turnip. Technically they are all turnips and either can be made into neeps.

My memories of Ireland include words like eejit, feck and craic. "after your" was also a phrase that puzzled me to start with.

RIP.ie is such a great site. Seeing Johnny Depp leave a comment on there for Shane McGowan was priceless because it seems like such an Irish thing. No idea if there's an equivalent.

A lot of people have mentioned 'giving out' which it did take me quite a while to realise people didn't say here in the same way. Of course it really came up for me not just because of the term itself but also the Irish approach to English grammar so I was actually referring to how I 'got given out to' which is just weird English, but made total sense to me.

And of course, don't think it's been mentioned yet because it's not an expression and more a pronunciation thing, but the Irish way of saying the letter R as 'Or' has caused huge confusion for me. Trying to spell names or email addresses for people which I had to do in my 1st job in London was ridiculous. It did take me ages to twig it and adjust.

I'd clearly forgotten the lesson learned when I spent a summer in Boston (J1 visa anyone?) and worked in a Warner Bros store. People used to ask for ER merch but I'd I ever tried to mention ER (pronounced E OR by me) no one knew what I was on about. Or worse thought I was saying Eeyore and would feel the need to remind me that Winnie the pooh was Disney, not Warners.

How is R pronounced in London @ConflictedCheetah?

I think I say it as 'awr' rather than 'or' if that makes any sense. I'm Irish.

A bit more Ar in London. I'm from South Dublin where it's very much Or. Think of how they say RTE news a lot of the time on TV.

A turnip is a small white root vegetable, a swede is a Swedish turnip and is yellow and sweeter than the traditional English turnip.

Both are turnips in Newcastle.

Have we had ‘afters’ meaning dessert yet?

'I got given out to' is perfectly usual English IMO - there are prescriptivists who say you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition, but who speaks like that? It's no different from 'I got rained on when I went out today' (for example).

R in London (typically) would be more 'ah' due to being non-rhotic, surely? Raising bilingual children whose only regular first-language 'live' source of English is me has shown me the disadvantages of my non-rhotic accent - it causes confusion (even though their other language is standard German, which is non-rhotic in a similar way) - and has made me very aware of not using 'r' to represent a R sound.

Okay, thanks.
I pronounce 'or' as 'ur' I've just realised, which is probably why I was confused🤔

Sorry if it has already been asked & answered but how is shopping "messages"?

Is it a translation or an "older" meaning?

I agree with 'ah' for the London R. A more piratical 'arr' in rhotic parts.of England.

@FoFanta said
"He's a massive ride" a good looking fella.

A ride is Irish for a shag. (Am not Irish, but I'm sure about this!)

We used to go for a run in the car at weekends (ancient Londoner here), and I had always assumed that Paul McCartney was referring to an outing in the car in the lyrics of When I'm 64.

But a while back, seeing as he is of quite recent Irish immigrant heritage, I found myself wondering if he actually meant something else and was having a secret joke...

"You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday morning, go for a ride."

Fair point.

codology - 'Will ye cease with the codology and attend to your work ye woolly heads'. (immortal and repeated words of a Leaving Cert teacher many moons ago)
Same teacher pronounced 'Lawyer' as 'liar' which could be a bit confusing during Civics and History lessons.

Spent a whole year wondering why she kept calling Daniel O'Connell a liar.😄

I use "Afters" (and also dessert)

Dub in England here. I miss the following:
'Give you the sick' as in, he's such a goody goody, he'd give you the sick
'Lick/lickarse' - some one who sucks up, eg he's such a lickarse, he'd give you the sick.
Wagon/wench - really annoying woman. My neighbour parked over my drive, the wagon

I'm just after learning that face cloth and lodging a cheque are not standard English. I'm gobsmacked!

My brother who lives in the UK was at a meeting once and baffled his colleagues when he suggested that they needed to take action soon and not put something on the long finger (procrastinate).

My father was fond of saying 'moryah', 'plámás' and exclaiming 'it's all codology' if he didn't believe it. I think a lot of Hiberno English has been lost with the passing of older people. Oh yes and 'rawmaysh' (ráméis) as well for meaning something that was completely made up. 'A load of ol' rawmaysh'.

David Mc Williams used the word ''Plamás'' in his podcast last week. I wondered if he did that consciously or unconsciously.

does gabhal mean vagina, wow, all these years I thought it was something like coinneach

Might have already been mentioned but I like the word "bold" being used to mean a cheeky/insolent child. (I assume it means that?)

Messages is not just shopping. it's the other bits you need to do in town. Lodge that cheque get a key cut, check if you can return that screw in light bulb you bought in error. All of these things are messages My Dad says it. My teenagers say it for 'fun' and then laugh, so it'll die out I'm sure. I don't know if it's a translation from Irish.

@diddl apparently it came from the time when you would go to the post offices to see if there were any messages for you. Wow, never knew that til I googled it. Thank you for asking! The question raised an interesting answer. (Interesting to me!)