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?

@VisionsOfSplendour

You're not wrong!

And there's a subtlety to it. It's not just repeatedly asking. You need to ask, then get the initial rebuff 'no no, I'm grand, I'm not staying'.

Then you need to wait a few minutes. Guest may now be sitting. 'Oh sure look, go on I'll have a cuppa. No, no cake / biscuits / etc'.

Some time later, 'if you're sure there's some in the pot?' as they sit down for a full meal.

I've done it myself!

As in "bit my nose off" not actually eating snot.

I got that. (Kind of)

These aren't Irish expressions.

@Pablova

😂😂😂

Exactly! My DD showed me that TikTok.

'in all' would be used in our patch.

'Sure he did in all'

(our patch 'be the way' is outside of the Pale)

The expression might not have been heard of inside D4 mind you. (runs away)😄

I have never heard the outside ground referred to as the floor. Floors are inside.

I was amazed too. But it's often used on MN and since I noticed it, I keep an ear out & I've heard it elsewhere too, by English people on TV.

It must be a fairly specific regionalism

@buidhe

We use run out too in England, I'm a Londoner by birth)and lived many other places) but I think it's waning. My grandparents used it as in going out for a run meaning a drive, we use it for the motorbike meaning he's going for a ride to nowhere for an hour or two, just for the fun of riding as opposed to going to a specific place.

Mother's Day is normal too as is floor inside, ground outside, I also use sick meaning ill but I've also lived stateside!

I say "Happy Out" meaning really pleased/ really happy.
There is a cafe chain of 3 cafes 😀in Dublin called Happy Out. I think it's a great name for a cafe.

'in all' would be used in our patch.

'Sure he did in all'

I know. It sounds like that because they are saying 'n' [which will sound like 'in'].

The phrase is 'and all', meaning 'and all the rest of it' or similar. There's no way to explain it.

No one will ever have seen 'in all' written down. Have a look at Roddy Doyle's writing. Or Seán O'Casey before that.

@SgtJuneAckland my Irish room mate at uni used to say necklAce with emphasis on an ay sound, rather than the usual neckless

Yes! It's a neck-lace for me. That maltesers ad where they are chatting in a canteen about breaking the grandmother's necklace completely confused me because I genuinely thought she said knickers. Why would you lend your granny's knickers to your colleague??!

Poorly is definitely a southern England expression.
In hospitals, it has an even more specific definition - poorly means seriously ill. Very poorly means could die at any moment.

I'm happy out reading this thread. Though I'd say some of you London based readers are proper happy.

I'm Irish.

We say 'in all'.

How many more ways can you tell someone?

We'd be more John B Keane then O'Casey down our way.

Yes, "ate the snot off me" is, when someone over reacts in an angry way. As in "Jaysis, I only asked how his wife was and he ate the snot off me!" "Well she left him last year, you gobshite."

I say that as well - maybe a Northern England expression as well?

I am one of 'they'. 😂

We say 'in all'.

Yes. You say it. Show me it written anywhere?

It's an abbreviation of 'and all'. Phonetically it sounds like 'in all' be use the 'n' on its own sounds like that.

I don't use it. Hear it plenty.

'In all' would make zero sense.

The references to Roddy Doyle / O'Casey are because you'll see that inner-city /Northside Dublin way of speaking, including this, depicted in writing.

JB Keane is irrelevant as it's not used there.

I grew up in northern England and everyone used poorly, I'm pretty sure that's not region specific, but it wouldn't have meant a serious illness, more like a bit of colour unlesss qualified by very

My point to that poster anyway was their list of 'Irish' expressions were not that - they are used in England or elsewhere too. They weren't specifically Irish.

It is really annoying when people do this. Do you imitate the accent of someone/strangers with an Indian/any other accent?

Cat for bad - isn't the weather cat?

Stop the lights - used for shock, awe, general amazement.

Shur at the beginning of most replies - "Do you want to go the cinema tonight?", "Shur I don't mind, what's on"?

But "Chonaic mé é" is I saw it not I seen it @TheLongRider

I seen it and I done it drives me daft.

We've had almost free education for all since about 1967 ( thank you Donogh O' Malley then Minister for Education and all involved ) so there is no excuse.

Did you know Donogh O' Malley's wife Hilda is the woman the poet Patrick Kavanagh writes of in the his poem Raglan Road.

I've had it done to me in Germany as a person with an English accent (which as a result I've worked quite hard to get rid of when speaking German). The person I most vividly remember doing it to me was probably doing it unconsciously, but it really doesn't feel nice. There's something of a proprietary/power move about it, that's quite hard to describe - it seems to be done when people think something is 'fair game' or doesn't quite belong to you somehow and/or want to put you in your place as 'other'.

Yes, and I think she made the right choice!

I hate 'I seen' & 'I done' too. But it is not about education in totality.

It's absolutely a regional thing - Cavan / Leitrim natives will use it, it's common in NI and has nothing to do with levels of education. It's just the way that people speak, in those regions.

It’s archetypal. To the point where, to this day, if I hear a snatch of GAA commentary, I am immediately transported to a wet Sunday in 1979 in my parents’ shite-brown Cortina.

(At one point, you could see the road through the passenger footwell, and at another, whoever sat in the passenger seat had to hold the driver’s door shut by holding onto a piece of twine that ran from the door handle across the driver’s lap. )

It’s astonishing they reared four children to adulthood.

Has anyone said ‘desperate’ as a useful cover-all for various varieties of bad? I did a desperate job interview, I got desperate Leaving Cert results, my hair is desperate, the weather is desperate.

Or ‘massive’ as a compliment/term of approval unrelated to size.

’Her debs dress was massive’ doesn’t mean she was wearing an XXXXXXL or a giant meringue.