Friday, December 2, 2011

Dublin Words - Part Two



No, it was most definitely not just the ones in the books, on the stage or in the exhibitions. For the most part, it was the turns of phrase I heard from new friends (which had the warmth of old ones), taxi drivers and the occasional random on the street that really endeared me to this town.

Not that they didn’t cause me some confusion at times.

Your man

 ‘I saw your man Andrew on the weekend’

Lorna innocently dropped this into the conversation one Monday morning in the staffroom, not long after I arrived in Dublin. Lorna and I had recently become friends one night after work over a bottle of Merlot. After the shop talk and the obligatory questions about the number of siblings we both had, we discussed men. (In my experience, swapping stories about men is how women galvanise new friendships. I am not alone in thinking this. After my friend G confided in me who she had a crush on for the very first time, she commented - ‘I just told you who I have a crush on. We are proper friends now’). It turned out that Lorna and I both had an ‘Andrew’ in our lives,  but I was fairly sure mine was deeply ensconced in academic pursuits in a country far far away.

So the above comment came as quite a surprise to me.

‘What?’ I inquired eloquently.

‘Your man Andrew, I saw him on the weekend’ she repeated.

WHAT, I raged to myself, had he been in town and not seen me? Geeze,I knew things weren't great between us but seriously. How did Lorna know it was him? Did she randomly meet him? How on earth had she figured out it was my Andrew? What are the odds? What on earth was he doing here? What is she not telling me? What is HE not telling me?

It is amazing how many thoughts can actually fit into 0.00045 of a second.

This fleet of successive thoughts were interrupted as Lorna continued with her story, and as I soon gathered that we were not talking about my Andrew, but hers.

I had forgotten about it until a few days later when a similar thing occurred.

‘Your man in the café does a good coffee’ my boss commented.

‘Oh no, he’s not mine. I barely even know him’ I explained.

Blank look from my boss.


It was at about that time that I realised that ‘Your one over there…’,or  ‘Your man in the café…’ was the same as saying ‘That person over there..., ‘That man in the café…’  and when Lorna had said ‘I saw your man Andrew last weekend’ she had just meant that she had seen the Andrew she had been talking over the third glass of Merlot .

No possession, ownership or previous attachment to me required.

Your one over here finally got it.


Grand

 ‘How are you?’

‘Grand thanks’.

Grand is an obvious charmer.

It is my humble opinion that if the rest of the English speaking world adopted ‘Grand’ as their response to ‘How are you?’ instead of ‘Fine’ or ‘Not bad thanks’,  the general state of world wide happiness would increase by at least 7 per cent.

Despite my instant admiration for ‘Grand’, I didn’t use it when I first arrived. It annoys me when visitors to a new country pick up the jargon (or in some cases, the accent) within a few days. It jars my sensibilities and sets off my bullshit radar. Over an extended period of time, you can’t help but pick up the phrases you hear around you and acquire a bit of lilt in your intonation but it certainly does not happen over a weekend.

So, it was quite a nice surprise, one afternoon (after I had been in Dublin for a few months) when, after  G had offered to do my photocopying for my next class, a little’ That would be grand’ popped out of my mouth in response.

My first authentic little grand. Grand.


 Knackers

Knackers was another phrase that I liked (although their matching grey tracksuits I was not so fond of).
Knackers are bogans or trailer trash (as in "The music festival was great, even though they it was full of knackers').


Rob

 Of course, the verb ‘rob’ is not particular to the Irish but their use of it is. They use ‘rob’ in they same way I use ‘steal’ and most people use ‘borrow’, for example ‘Can I rob your  pen for a minute? Tanks’. (NB, ‘tanks’ is not a spelling mistake. Just my attempt at phonetic realism as the whole ‘th’ sound is not so popular in Dublin).

Crack

'Good crack’ was another phrase I liked, though I could never make it my own. I did resist the urge to comment that while good crack means a good time in Dublin, where I come from it means good heroin.

Langers

My all time favourite. Langers means drunk. As in ‘I was absolutely langers on Friday night’.

As in ‘I do miss getting a little bit langers with my ones in Dublin’. And I do.

How is it possible to get a pang, no an ache, in my heart of homesickness for a place that was only home for six months?

(This one’s for you G. Proper friends now.)