A reader from Sutton, Margaret Gannon by name, asks if there are any words, apart from craic, which annoy me for one reason or another.
Once upon a time a large browl (Irish breall, an oaf) who had been instructed to put the peasantry in their places, attempted to evict myself and a very distinguished old man from Bennettsbridge by the name of Hubert Butler from a Requiem Mass. The seats we had occupied in the nave were reserved for dignitaries, we were told. The dignitaries turned out to be a sherogany (a south Wexford word this, a crowd, origin unknown) of politicians, captains of local industry and their wives, clergymen and nuns, professional people excluding teachers and a full back line of strong farmers. The eviction attempt failed. Now I didn't give a curse about not being classed as a dignitary, but old Hubert, with whom I had corresponded about words but had never previously met, I felt for, though he seemed amused. I have disliked the word dignitary ever since. I came here from Old French degnite (the French have since Latinised their spelling to dignite), from Latin dignitas from dignus, worthy. Dignus old Hubert and I were not.
Enthusiast is another word I'm not fond of. I don't like being classed as one. The word seems to be applied nowadays only to eccentrics, like those interested in Irish. But in times more civilised than ours when a person got very interested in a subject it was thought that a god had taken possession of him. The Greeks had a word for this possession, enthusiasmos, from enthos, a god within, from en, in, and theos, god.
There are, of course, those who, in their honesty, would call the enthusiast a fanatic. This word had its origins in Roman temples (Latin fanum). It was assumed that in the vicinity of temples one might sometimes find people of extreme convictions. Such a person was called fanaticus, which gave English fanatic, a word the American baseball enthusiasts shortened to fan.
I'm in a sardonic mood as I write this, in a mood to laugh with scorn, especially at dignitaries. But it is interesting how that word sardonic has evolved. It came to us from French sardonique, itself from late Greek Sardonios, Sardinian. The natives of that island, the Greeks believed, knew of a plant of which they who ate died laughing. Don't read too many election leaflets. They could have the same effect.