We are not shaped by the facts of history, Brian Friel wrote in Translations, but by images of the past that are embodied in our language.
If so, future Irish generations will be shaped by a vocabulary of learnings and shooters, reaching out and leaning in, semesters, vacation, elevators, shop the collection, woke, super, awesome, upticks, 24/7, FYI, TMI, Maga, mega, sat down with (interviewed) and walked it back (retracted).
The present generations have amassed a suite of lexical luggage that conjures up legions of shoulder-padded Uncle and Auntie Sams whizzing up and down skyscrapers while pushing shopping carts (trolleys) loaded with acronyms. Not quite Spancilhill on a fair day. Friel’s language so vividly captured his fictional Ballybeg that tourists have been known to go missing in Donegal’s vastness while searching for the Mundy sisters’ home place.
For a picture postcard of our age, here are some of the sounds and idiosyncrasies that may shape future Irish generations.
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Clang: The mournful bells of the Angelus on the radio at midday in multicultural, post-Catholic Ireland.
“Yeah, no”: A native talent for being in two minds.
Honking horns: Aimed at XL-size cars that are too big to fit on their side of the white line.
The Rose of Tralee: A song and a festival for grown-ups who still haven’t learned how to unbuckle their shoes.
“Let us know how you got on”: Texts and emails from companies presuming we’ll do their market research free gratis for them.
[ If we’re going to start renaming everything, we should dename IrelandOpens in new window ]
“What did you think of the restaurant?” : Ditto.
“Please take five minutes to rate our service”: Ditto 2.
Ryanair announcements: Paper boarding passes are verboten? Perhaps you’d like us to fly the plane too, Michael O’Leary?
“Industry”: A noun that once denoted manufacturing now applied to any type of commerce. Who knew model agencies were actually making those impossibly long, skinny people in factories?
“Hurls”/ “hurleys”: The inter-county wrangle over what to call the camán is the GAA’s least life-threatening contest.
Status orange weather warnings: Lovely sizzling summer.
“If this is climate change, bring it on”: Sorry about those deadly floods and droughts, future Earth people.
Chancer: The unfortunate weather forecaster who failed to anticipate a cold front of indifference when she declared she was available to become the president of Ireland.
Fianna Fáil: The GAA’s political manifestation for sedentary lads with thick-skinned shins for kicking.
The whirr of back-pedalling: That sound heard when the OPW explains why the Leinster House bike shed cost the equivalent price of two charming cottages in Leitrim.
Molly Malone: The fishmonger’s boobs get more unwanted attention than the OPW’s booboos.
Ghost buses: A deeply unfunny joke. Dublin Bus, we’re not laughing.
[ Why are so many people in Ireland so rude?Opens in new window ]
Reverse beeps, drills and kango hammers: The ceaseless cacophony of construction work, but where are all the houses?
FAQs: Some techie’s notion of Frequently Asked Questions that companies direct customers to on their websites which never actually answer the darn question.
The hurler on the ditch: Usually, a very rich man pronouncing from the back seat of his chauffeur-driven limo that Dubliners do not need a train to the airport, to the Mater hospital or to Glasnevin Cemetery.
The hurler in the dock: DJ Carey.
Bamboozling branding: An Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission is reincarnated as Fiosrú. The Land Registry and the Registry of Deeds are amalgamated as Tailte Éireann. Coimisiún na Meán is, essentially, the old Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. RSA Insurance has become Intact Insurance. Bord na Móna is BnM and the Czech Republic is Czechia, Troy Parrott’s next target.
Appointment anxiety: “I might be able to fit you into my diary in 2027,” say the plumber, the electrician and the washing-machine repair man.
“Ding-a-dong”: Ireland can’t win the Eurovision – saving a nation from the annual fever of false hopes – but it has won the high moral ground.
Saoirse, Cillian, Siobhán and Ciarán: If America can’t get its tongue around Irish movie stars’ names, just wait until President Connolly gets motoring. “Is tusa duine féin-grámhar agus bréagach [a lying narcissist]?” “What’s she saying?” “She says you’re only gorgeous, president Trump.”
Silence: When nobody can hear the person on the other end of the phone as you walk the streets hands-free looking as if you’re talking to yourself – and nobody thinks you’re weird.
“Talk to Joe”: End of an era.
“Humming smothered by a 46a and the scream of a low-flying jet”: Ditto.
Jackie Lennox’s chipper on Bandon Road: Heartbroken, boy. Ditto 2.
“Making art”: Whether it’s a novel, a poem or a painting, it’s creative. It’s not manufacturing. Leave that to the model agencies.
“Creatives”: Yuck.
Preposterous prepositions: Newsflash – there is no review “into” Fianna Fáil’s presidential candidate selection. There is a review “of” it, though. That review will not culminate in a report “into” what happened but it should produce a report “on” what happened. Nor is anyone waiting “on” the report (unless they have a very small bottom and are in the habit of sitting on top of a bundle of paper) but they might be waiting “for” it.
The missing G: Send out a search party to Montrose where the hapless G has vanished from RTÉ’s present participles and gerunds. Gaybo would be morto.
“We’re pregnant”: No, ye’re not. The one who is pregnant is the one with morning sickness, Braxton hicks, an aching back and nothing to fit a ballooning waistline.
Guffaw: What we do when the prime minister ofIsrael proposes a US president busy blowing up Venezuelans at sea and calling Somalis “garbage” for the Nobel Peace Prize. Sure, if we didn’t laugh we’d be crying.
The Fields of Athenry: A rugby anthem about a fellow deported to Botany Bay for nicking a few grains of corn during the Famine.
The new year resolution: To come back and see how all that shapes you, future confounded people of Ireland.
