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?

can I add

I’m fecked to the list as well as I’m dosed or I’m not in it at all or as my dad would say I’m as sick as Jameses ( hospital)

Some of these are age related. I'm 53 and I'm sure that Mothering Sunday didn't used to sound so stuffy in 1978! Then hallmark started taking over and renaming every event.

I could eat eat the hind leg of the lamb of Jesus. (I'm starvin' hungry)

I’m 51 and Mothering Sunday has always sounded as odd to me as Boxing Day!

An English relative of mine came to work in The Royal Victoria in Belfast. On his first day in A&E, a patient gasped "Doctor, doctor, I'm goin' tee boke". He smiled and nodded cluelessly, - and she vomited all over him. He now knew what "boke" meant!!

@Joolsin 😂 😂 😂

Not sure if mentioned already but we would say look at the cut of them, if we thought someone looked awful. Not sure if it's just irish that say, ' I could eat a farmers arse through a hedge' when they are really hungry.

"Couldn't beat Casey's drum" - I think it means a weak person. I'd like to know the origin, but it doesn't seem to be in any slang/dialect dictionaries, although it's years since I checked.

Cat malogen!

I have an Egyptian hospital consultant living in my home, I must share this medical dictionary with him 😂

I have a German cardiologist friend who now uses ‘fierce shook”, which sounds wonderful in a strong Hamburg accent

There is also an Irish expression “thrown down” (possibly equivalent to “fierce shook”) which is definitely understood by non Irish medical people practicing in Ireland.

Yes, thrown down is used a lot. Not really equivalent to shook ime @KittytheHare.

If the kids were coming down with some bug and seemed listless instead of their usual energetic selves I'd say they were thrown down.

Shook or very shook is used to describe someone who's experienced a bad illness or other traumatic event, eg a bad shock, death of a relative etc. It means they're badly shaken really I suppose, frail. But there are degrees of it depending on the experience...a bit shook to very shook or fierce shook.

"There's two of them in it"

"Take the hand out of" always seemed an odd variant on the phrase.

Oh, I've just of another one that my mum used to say if she was talking about a child who was always sickly - you know the kind, always pale and tired and usually with a dribbly nose. "That child is a bit puley looking". It's pronounced to rhyme with duly. I think it's a Nordy/Scots word.

God bless the mark to ward off bad luck - concerning something unusual someone was born with

I was thinking about this thread earlier when I was chatting to my cousin. I enquired about her neighbour. She said “well he’s failed a sight, he got fierce shook since you last saw him.

"Let the hare sit"

What does that mean? Take your time?

Let matters rest (for the time being)

There's more than one type of Catholic church?! 🤯 I never knew this!

Have we had turnip vs swede yet? One of the first times I used Tesco self service years ago I was ages trying to look up turnip. In the end the checkout lady helped me out by telling me it's a swede in England so that's what Tesco use ( and this was in Ireland).

Has anyone mentioned ‘lads’ yet?

Not just a group of young fellas if you’re Irish [in]

I thought swedes were more orange than turnips which can have a more purple hue. In spanish they are 'nabo' and swede is ''nabo sueco'', so different things.