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?

An English colleague (in England) used the word poorly today, no one batted an eyelid.

I'm northern English, living in Ireland. I cannot bear the word 'poorly' and never could. I can't bring myself to say it, and if a love interest were to use that word I'd go off him instantly. Urrgh.

And I agree about 'brolly' too. If a man used that word, or even actually carried an umbrella, however much of a ride he otherwise might be, I'd immediately cease to think of him in that way. Not sexy. At all. Same as if he wore a jumper or a cardigan. Just no.

Wore a jumper? How is he supposed to keep warm? Heated underwear?

Haha! No, Irish DH has a hatred of jumpers. He does rugby shirts with a t-shirt underneath. Keeps him snug without looking like his da.

I was at a Christening with a friend (mutual friend's children being christened) we actually had a conversation about whether we were in an RC church or not.

Mutual friend isn't RC but there were stations of the cross.

We checked the prayer book and found the Lord's Prayer rather than the Our Father.

That settled matters.

liz4change · Yesterday 07:31

Scallions = spring onions

That's another common one in NE England, but it seems to be older people, maybe dying out now. I've a Jamaican friend who cooks all the time, he says it and I asked if he picked it up here, but no, it's a Jamaican thing, too.

In some places scallions are the ones with no bulb, spring onions are the same plant left to grow so there is a bulb.

I'm loving the official term Pulmonic ingressive! Who knew there was a name for it! My mother is the queen of this and I've always taken it to mean she's keeping her mouth doing something while I'm talking, so to be prepared to interrupt at any given moment 🤣

Which by the way she invariably does. Cannot have a "you speak, I speak" conversation with her. It's chaos. My english dh gets stressed out just listening. And if my dsis is there too, well he just sort of leaves the room 🤣

@sashh @SinnerBoy interesting, I've never lived in the north of England. Some of the Dublin words (mot/jacks/kip) come from much older English usage

@Alalalalalongalalalalalonglonglilong fanny biscuits pffft

More words/phrases floating to the top:

Naggin - as in a naggin of gin
Scuttered - what you might be after consuming same
Referring to someone as a dry shite
Giving someone a dig = what you might do to someone who's after calling you a dry shite
Roaring crying - something that could result from any combination of the above
Acting the maggot

What are " the Js " @liz4change ?

Maybe some do, but many certainly don’t!

When I was 9 we moved to the Midlands, where I was startled to hear people calling the ground out of doors ‘the floor’.

Where I’d come from (outer SW London) the floor was strictly indoors only, outside it was the ground.
So evidently yet another regional thing.

As for Irish-isms, I used to love the way an Irish friend would say e.g., ‘I’m just after doing (whatever)’, meaning she’d just done it.

You like your men to be freezing and soaked I take it. How bad😂

Willing to bet very few people in England would have a clue what you were doing n about if you referred to "the Js"

Irish and no clue either here🤔

Maith agat Liz. Anyone I told this innocent abroad the bones of it. Living in Ireland 7 years and don't know what a Gombeen is. You better find out girl , if you are renting in Cork or Kerry! Give these lads a swerve if you possibly can.

Let me get you out of those wet things , you'll catch your death!

Great new chat up ploy.

Help an atheist out - which direction did it settle things in?

And I know what thr stations of the cross are in terms of the crucifixion story, but what does it mean in the context of a church service/architecture (do they recite a list, have little models round the church ...)?

My Irish friend said her kids wash their teeth. Don't know if that's common.

"Bring the kids to the beach" (as opposed to leaving them home while you go?) is also in some US dialects (not sure if all) and it's very confusing to us Brits.

Oh yes my NI friend said she "lifted the collection" at church which sounded very dodgy!

@Mashedorboiled @LadyEloise1

The Js = the Jesuits

@NoBinturongsHereMate - the Lord's Prayer is what the prayer beginning "Our Father...." is called in the Anglican liturgy. It's almost identical in form in Anglican and Catholic churches, but not quite.

Why? That would be an ecumenical matter

We RCs call it the Our Father after the opening words. Another difference is the 'tail' Protestants say but Catholics tend to leave out ' for thine is the kingdom...etc '

Of course we are never Roman Catholic at home , just Catholics. I think you are meant to meditate at each Station , or recite a decade of the rosary. Never really grabbed me. I prefer to just sit at the candle shrine thingy if I have any worries.

Re the Stations of the Cross @NoBinturongsHereMate
They could be pictorial representations- flat or 3D or stained glass windows. You walk from one to the other in a special order reciting prayers silently.
I haven't done them in years.

No, the ground outside is the ground. 'Floor' should only refer to the floor indoors. Unless you're talking about the forest floor... A lot of English people do seem to say 'floor' to mean ground, though, even though it's wrong.