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 fella is a buck eejit

Thats a higher level of stupidity than a regular eejit 😊

What about "a-ra" stuck at the start of a sentence ?? "A-ra she's grand" or "A-ra I was only messin" or is this just my family (from the Wesht)

I'm English but shared a house with several Irish people in the 1990s. This thread has brought back happy memories, I remember many of these expressions and words, some were unfamiliar but obvious by context (give out, grand), or are used in my part of SE England eg cop on, let on. I had never heard press or hot press before though. They also used to say "yer man" when we might say "the bloke" or "the man" as in "I was talking to yer man in the pub". The one that I do remember really confusing me was "are you after your dinner".

I've also never noticed anyone in England use floor for ground, its always ground when its outdoors.

Couple my friend says.

I'll ask yer man here. For I'll ask this man.

And using yourself, herself in different ways than I do. So if my friend was talking about going home to see her daughter she would say: I'm going home to see herself.

That one always made me think she was going home to look in the mirror ☺️

I will in me hole
Gway outta that
Your messin
I couldn't give a flying fuck
Give over
In all ( sure I've made the tea in all)
Gwan
Gerrup outta that

I couldn't give a flying fuck
Give over
Very standard English English those two

Stoke-on-Trent. I’ve heard it in Stoke-on-Trent but I’m not sure how common it is even there.

Laughing so hard at this. I had a similar experience talking to a male colleague about my pants and how I had just spilled some coffee on them . He was mortified 🤣🤣🤣

It was only later I realised that he thought I was talking to him about wetting my knickers.

@sashh I worked in Sheffield for a while and was going down the stairs at work to make a brew. A bloke coming up the other way said "ooh, is tha mashin?" and I stared at him blankly until he explained that he was asking if I was making a cup of tea.

Does your baby make strange?

boggin = dirty
Dead on = that's good
Aye, dead on = I don't believe you

Maybe more of a Northern Ireland thing though😄

I'm Irish and my husband always laughs and tells me I use brought and took the wrong way round. I can never get it lol

I'm English - 'let on' and 'give over' are in my vocab (mostly passively, tbf - I'd say 'pack it in' rather than 'give over', though I prob would say 'don't let on you know').

On 'give out' - is 'give someone into trouble' an Irishism?

An Irish friend took over a teaching job from me.

One of the students was an absolute pain in the arse, but I didn't share this because I wanted her to start fresh.

A few months later.

Me: "How are you getting on?"
Friend: "Ah grand, but X...she's a pain in the hole!"

Never heard it before but clearly we were as one mind!

Several of these are not typically Irish ways of saying things!

'In all' - never heard this. It might be 'and all' and that's as likely to be said by anyone English - it's not Irish for sure.

That's great!

German uses 'bring' for situations English would use 'take' for, as well, though as soon as it's about having someone/something along with you it's back to 'take' - so a literal translation would be 'I need to bring dd to school for 9, and I'll take the baby with [me]'.

*British English, not 'English', in my post above. Can't see the edit function

As someone said, wiki has a good explanation of this. I always have to look it up as I can never remember what's what. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English

Bring and take: Irish use of these words differs from that of British English because it follows the Irish grammar for beir and tóg. English usage is determined by direction; a person determines Irish usage. So, in English, one takes "from here to there", and brings it "to here from there". In Irish, a person takes only when accepting a transfer of possession of the object from someone else – and a person brings at all other times, irrespective of direction (to or from).

Don't forget to bring your umbrella with you when you leave.
(To a child) Hold my hand: I don't want someone to take you.

There's no word in English English that captures the sheer breadth of grand.

A fair few of these make perfect sense in west Wales! There was an Irish lady who I used to see at my old job, and upon leaving she would say "mind yourself" (sounds better in a lovely strong Irish accent!), always made me smile. One of our sayings that only seems to be understood if you are Welsh is "I'll do it now in a minute".

I wouldn't call that a floor, or the ground. I think I'd say paving!

Edit: the quote vanished! That's in reply to @Ggttl re what would I call paving slabs.

It’s used on here quite frequently.

I have to say I assumed it was an error, like using ‘brought’ for ‘bought’, but I seem to remember someone on a thread insisting it was a regionalism (though no memory of which region).

Things my English friends on Erasmus noticed:

• meet instead of meet up (silly distinction imo!)
• filum for film

-Billy Jo-el 😆

I've never an Irish person saying were you with rain or needs washed but so much is regional. For me it has always been Pancake Tuesday never Pancake Day.

Edit is on the three dots drop down on most devices