Hiberno-English

Behaving foolishly. Messing about, usually with a hint of deliberate annoyance to the person watching. 'Stop acting the maggot' is the standard Hiberno-English instruction to a child or pretend-child who is fooling around. Less serious than 'misbehaving'; more pointed than 'horsing around'.

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Broken, ruined, or beyond repair. Used of objects, plans, vehicles, and exhausted humans alike. The damage is generally final or close to it; a banjaxed thing is rarely worth fixing.

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A blister or small bubble. As a noun: 'a bleb on the back of his heel' = a blister. As a verb: to bubble up. The kind of thing you get from a new pair of boots or from holding a kettle too long against the skin.

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Naughty, mischievous, badly behaved, especially of a child. Distinct from the standard English sense of brave or daring. An Irish parent calling a child bold is reprimanding, not praising. Used affectionately or seriously depending on tone.

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To joke, to mess with someone playfully. As a verb: 'I'm only codding you' = I'm only joking. As a noun: a fool, or someone making a fool of themselves: 'he's making a right cod of himself.' Nothing to do with the fish.

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Shrewdness, common sense, street-wisdom. As a noun: 'he has no cop on'. As a verb: 'will you cop on and stop wasting your money'. The noun is closer to good judgement; the verb is closer to 'wise up'.

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Fun, entertainment, or lively conversation - the social atmosphere that makes a room worth being in. The reason a pub is full on a Tuesday.

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A cunning opportunist - someone who plays the system, exploits loopholes, and gets away with it without quite doing anything wrong. Almost always pejorative, occasionally spoken with rueful admiration. A fixture of Irish political and business commentary.

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Okay. Fine. No problem. The standard Belfast and Ulster phrase for casual agreement or confirmation. Also (of a person) sound, decent, reliable: 'he's dead on' = he's a decent fellow.

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A foolish or daft person - but never quite an insult. An eejit is doing something silly, not lacking intelligence. The word is almost always affectionate, often self-applied ('I was an eejit for not bringing a coat'), and is the standard Hiberno-English alternative to 'idiot'.

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Well done. Good on you. Fair play to you means I acknowledge what you've done and approve of it. Distinct from the standard English 'fair play' meaning equitable treatment - the Hiberno-English sense is admiration, not impartiality.

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Very, extremely - the bleached intensifier sense. 'Fierce cold today', 'he's fierce stubborn'. Sits in the wider Hiberno-English intensifier set with quare, powerful, wild, and desperate. The standard English meaning of savage still works; the intensifier is the Irish contribution.

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Funny, amusing, entertaining. Applied to a person, a story, or a situation: 'she's gas', 'it was a gas night out'. The Hiberno-English use works as both adjective and noun, often interchangeably within the same sentence.

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To stare openly, usually with too little subtlety - at a tourist, a celebrity, a fight in the chip shop. As a noun, an awkward person; one who gawks. Both senses were originally one word.

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To scold, complain, grumble, or reprimand. Followed by 'to' (a person) or 'about' (a topic). 'Giving out to him' is telling him off; 'giving out about the weather' is complaining about it. A regular feature of Hiberno-English, not slang.

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A loud-mouthed fool. Distinct from 'eejit' (affectionate) and 'amadán' (rueful): a gobshite is foolish in the noisy, opinionated way, the kind whose foolishness inflicts itself on others. The mouth, not the mind, is what the word names.

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Fine. Satisfactory. All right. The Hiberno-English sense is a semantic narrowing of the standard English 'grand' (= magnificent); in Ireland it usually means something nearer to 'fine, thanks, no need to make a fuss.'

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A comic description of a very thin person - so thin from the front that a second eye would be unnecessary, since you could see the whole face with one. Used affectionately or with mild concern, never cruelly. Common variants substitute 'skinny' or 'thin' for 'narrow'.

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A noisy party, a lively gathering, or an evening of traditional music and drink. Bigger than a get-together, friendlier than a do, more domestic than a rave. The kind of night where someone has the fiddle out by midnight.

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Spoken as confirmation, meant as refusal. 'I will, yeah' is the most-used sarcastic disagreement in Hiberno-English: a flat-toned, deliberate ironic agreement that means 'no, absolutely not'. Delivery carries the whole message - said with warmth it might mean yes, said dryly it never does.

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Physically exhausted, worn out by effort. In Hiberno-English the bodily sense dominates: 'I'm jaded after the walk' means tired in the legs, not weary of life. Distinct from the standard English sense of bored or world-weary, which Irish speakers reach for with 'fed up' or 'scunnered' instead.

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Take care; look after yourself. The standard Hiberno-English farewell, replacing goodbye in most spoken contexts. Built on the older sense of 'mind' as 'to attend to' - a meaning Hiberno-English kept while the wider language narrowed it.

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Soft drinks. Fizzy drinks. The standard Hiberno-English word for what Britain calls 'fizzy drinks' or 'pop' and America calls 'soda'. Always plural in this sense: 'a few minerals for the kids', 'the minerals are in the fridge'.

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A piece of country advice: don't undervalue an old friend just because they're familiar, aged, or have been around forever. Used as a soft rebuke or as gentle counsel, depending on the speaker. The shorter form 'never despise an old friend' is a known Irish traditional tune title.

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Deferred indefinitely; shelved without being formally cancelled. To put something on the long finger is to acknowledge it needs doing while removing it from the immediate workload. The phrase is the standard Hiberno-English way to describe a polite postponement.

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Strange, unusual, or peculiar - and, by a delicious twist, an intensifier meaning very or extremely. A word that holds two opposing senses at once and trusts the listener to know which is meant.

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A lot. An unspecified large quantity, almost always in the construction 'a rake of [thing]'. 'A rake of pints', 'a rake of cars', 'a rake of trouble'. The implied quantity is more than several and less than a multitude; precision is the speaker's affair, not the listener's.

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Trainers. Sneakers. Sports shoes worn outside actual sport. The standard southern Irish word for what Britain calls trainers, America calls sneakers, and Ulster calls gutties. Always plural; never 'a runner' in this sense.

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Tan-coloured. Of skin: olive or warm-toned rather than pale. In Hiberno-English the word describes a complexion neutrally - someone is sallow rather than pale or fair. The standard English connotation of sickly or yellowish does not carry in Irish use.

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Acutely embarrassed; mortified - on one's own behalf or, distinctively, on someone else's. Where standard English uses 'scarlet with shame' as a stage direction, Hiberno-English drops the prepositional phrase and lets the colour do the whole job.

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A high compliment for a capable, formidable, or impressive woman - someone who, the construction suggests, contains more than the ordinary measure of one person. Used in admiration, occasionally with a hint of awe. The masculine equivalent, 'some man for one man', exists but is less common.

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The local newsagent and small grocer combined. 'Going to the shops' means stepping out to the nearest one, often without further specification. Treated as a collective even when one shop is meant: 'I'm just running to the shops' may mean a single small premises.

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A pre-sliced loaf of pan bread - the standard everyday white loaf in Irish bread aisles. 'Pan' here is the rectangular tin shape of the bread, not the cooking vessel. Almost always heard as the full phrase 'a sliced pan'.

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Tiny fragments, splinters, broken bits. Almost always in the construction 'blown to smithereens', 'smashed to smithereens', or 'gone to smithereens'. The plural is non-negotiable; one smithereen is rare and feels wrong.

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A grey, drizzly, mild day. Not actively raining but not dry either. The default weather of much of the Irish year, named with a hint of resignation and a hint of affection. Often said in greeting: 'a soft day, thank God.'

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Now making real progress; finally hitting one's stride. Almost always preceded by 'now we're': the phrase marks the moment when the thing being attempted starts running cleanly, as a tractor does when its engine is properly fuelled.

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A multi-purpose closing or hand-over phrase. Said when passing something across a counter, finishing a small task, or politely concluding a piece of news. Less an answer than a soft full stop on the conversation.

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To make the tea. To pour boiling water over the tea leaves in the pot. The Hiberno-English standard phrase for the act of brewing tea, distinct from the standard English 'put the kettle on' (which is the earlier preparatory step).

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Any object whose name escapes the speaker - a contraption, a gadget, a doohickey. Also used of a person: an awful yoke is an awful one. Versatile and rural in feel.

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A vague third-person reference to a man: the one being discussed, the one over there, the one we both know. The possessive 'your' is purely grammatical, not literal - 'your man' is not anybody's. The female equivalent is 'your one'.

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A way of referring to a specific female person without naming her, usually previously identified or visible to both speakers. The female counterpart of 'your man'. Often shortened to 'yer wan' in casual speech.

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You, plural. The Hiberno-English fix for the gap left when standard English collapsed singular 'thou' and plural 'ye' into a single 'you'. 'Are yous coming for a drink?' = are you-plural coming. Also written 'youse' or 'youze'.

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