Making a pig's ear of a name

The unveiling of a nameplate for Dublin's newest laneway, Cow's Lane in Temple Bar has upset lovers of both the Irish and English languages.

As Wednesday's Irish Times photograph showed, the nameplate put into position by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, bore the legend "Cows Lane" and the Irish language version "Lana Na Bo".

But the sign was not one day in position when the trouble started. Did the Minister not recognise the sign was incorrect in our national language, asked telephone callers to this newspaper and to Temple Bar Properties, developers of the new lane.

The cows' lane should in Irish read Lana Na mBo, indicating that the lane was in the possession of the cows, said many callers who suggested that State agencies should be able to organise a nameplate in the first official language, without making a pig's ear of it.

An equal number of calls berated the absence of any apostrophe in the word "cows" which would be essential to indicate if the lane was in the possession of one cow or two cows.

However Ms Annette Nugent for Temple Bar Properties defended the Irish version saying that expert advice had been sought from Bord Na Gaelige. "It was," she said, "the English version that was wrong."

Unfortunately, the designation that there was just one cow involved, an apostrophe between the "w" and the "s" was not printed, making both versions technically wrong. ". . . the Irish version is the correct translation of the English words that should have been printed."