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?

That's standard in English English as well.

Oh that's interesting thank you.

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.

Ah yes, the days when you could actually do all of that!

Has anyone already mentioned the magnificence that is ye? Such a useful word but there’s no acceptable plural for you (that I’m aware of) in England.
I’m English but live in Ireland now and I don’t know how I managed without it. My brothers raise their eyebrows when I use it but I don’t care. I’ve also adopted grand and happy out and probably quite a few more that I haven’t noticed.

My Dad also used to get the messages.

I did!

Sorry @FuzzyCaoraDhubh I read the first few pages and got a bit excited and rushed to the end 😆

Ag, forgot about rawmaysh @FuzzyCaoraDhubh.
I often use this...eg 'Ah, don't listen to me, I'm just ramayshing away' when I've lost the point of what I'm saying and have started to ramble on.

I'm very impressed that you have taken on 'ye' all the same!

I agree about ye. The English language needs ye.

I don't use it myself but I can see how it fills a void. It'll never go away! shifting and riding and wearing will come and go. But 'ye' is here to stay

I've occasionally heard noody nawdy used to describe an insipid sort or person, but I haven't come across it too often. I think it's a translation from the Irish.

I only discovered quite recently that the UK's national postal service was established about 50 years before the delivery service was set up.

And as with many meal words, it's a class (and to some extent region and age) marker.

I love how things are so region specific too. My Leitrim father has oxters instead of armpits, no one down here in Cork has heard of them. Also my Wicklow mother begins most sentences with “come here to me”. She doesn’t actually want me to get any closer but she can’t help herself 🤣

Love this thread - been here (UK) for nearly 30 years & people (mostly my husband!) are still baffled that when I say ‘I will, yeah’ - I have absolutely no intention of doing it 😂

Also still get funny looks when I say :-

Ye
Your man
Your wan
Mammy (I’m 48)
Daddy (as above)
Acting the maggot
Ejit
Amn’t
Bold

Last time I was on holiday in Dublin I got a taxi back to the airport to come home and was surprised to hear the taxi driver say that the traffic was 'right shite' on the main road.
It made me laugh out loud but some English people would be mildly offended by that.😄

Oxters in Dublin too 😂

Come here to me, usually the precursor to some mega juicy gossip or her wanting some from you 😂

There used to be. We originally had a similar set up to French and German - thee/thou/thine was informal and singular (like the French tu), ye/you/your was formal singular or plural for any degree of formality (like vous). Sometime round the 18th century we dropped the informal and singular forms and differentiation between subject and object.

Grand out. Right so. Delft for pottery. Kippins for kindling. Come here to me. Not literally....

Gowl is another @Gowlbag as you know of course!

Round here, kindling is sticks.

Ending sentences with ‘so’.
Mothering Sunday used to be when girls/boys ‘in service’ were allowed to go home to visit their mothers and go to church.

"Wait til I tell ye..." - you know there could be some juicy gossip coming 😄

I hear this a lot when people are interviewed on the news. Years ago I did an OU Creative Writing course and the tutor was highly critical of my story because she didn’t understand I was referring to the floor inside, not the ground outside. That was the first I’d heard of this.

Kippins here too, Cork county