It must be close on three years since Mainchin Seoighe, of Tankardstown, Kilmallock, Co Limerick, wrote to me about one of his mother's words, tallamacka, which meant a hullabaloo, clamour, noisy disagreement. Seamus Moylan found telemachus in Tullogher, Co Kilkenny, and John Rochford from Waterford heard tallymackey at the foot of the Comeraghs. A flood of letters came in suggesting the origin of the word but none of them satisfied me. A month or so ago the Rev B.H. Sharp, of The Vicarage, Cymbach, near Aberdare, saw a discussion of the word in a book of mine which he bought in London, and he thinks he has the answer to our problem. He is worth listening to. This is what he has to say.
"Tallamacka: would it have a religious connection? St Telemachos (his Greek name: Almachius in Roman Catholic calendars) was martyred in Rome about 400 A.D. He was a monk from the east who sought to put an end to gladiatorial contests. One day he ran into the arena to separate the contestants. There was a hullaballoo and a half, and poor Telemachos was killed. Nobody is sure who killed him. Perhaps it was the mob who didn't want their fun ruined; perhaps it was the gladiators on the order of the city prefect, who thought such scenes bad for business. Anyway, it is said that as a result of the affray the emperor Honorius abolished such barbarous shows. Did the saint give his name to the uproar?" Well, what do you think?
I was looking at Miss Guinevere Rogers (Ginger to you) hoofing it in an old movie the other night. I was reminded of that fierce Puritan Stubbes, who denounced "the dancing minions that minse it full gingerly". "Stubbes" ginger is the rhyzome of the tropical plant Zingiber Officinale. In a play of Webster's (a man Stubbs would not approve of) we find, "Oh she looks so sugredly, so simperingly, so gingerly, so amorously; she's such an intycing she-witch". Hot stuff, again. But when we say things like, "treat him gingerly", that is, with a degree of caution, we are dealing with a word that has a different and more noble pedigree. This ginger is from the Old French gentior, a comparative of gent, nice. Confusion arose, naturally. It is easy to see why people who picked a thing gingerly thought they did so because the wretched thing was literally or figuratively hot. Tricky business, this etymology.