Archive for October, 2014
‘Cats’, ‘of the cats,’ ‘black cats’ and related phrases in Irish Posted by róislín on Oct 31, 2014
(le Róislín) Who says that cait dhubha aren’t “gleoite”? There are all kinds of pisreoga about them being or bringing bad luck, and I’ve heard that people are reluctant to adopt them from shelters. But there’s no reason that having a cat dubh should be any different than having a cat of any other color…
Smashing Pumpkins – not really, just counting them, leniting them and eclipsing them (in Irish) Posted by róislín on Oct 28, 2014
(le Róislín) ‘Tis the séasúr to be talking about puimcíní. In some previous blogs (naisc thíos), we’ve looked at how to count pumpkins and use the word “puimcín” in various types of abairtí and frásaí. So this blog will basically recap some of the phrases we’ve looked at before, but with the added twist of…
Cé mhéad zombaí? – A ‘quiz’ for ‘Oíche Shamhna’ (Halloween) Posted by róislín on Oct 25, 2014
(le Róislín) You might remember a previous blog (Ag Comhaireamh Daoine i gCultacha Oíche Shamhna (Vaimpírí, Gúil, srl.) that gave the Irish for many typical Halloween costumes. In that blog, we also used the “uimhreacha pearsanta” to count how many ghouls and zombies we were talking about. In this blog, we’ll recap those costume terms…
What’s Wrong? Discussing Illnesses in Irish: Cad atá ort? Galar? Tinneas? Rud Eile? Posted by róislín on Oct 22, 2014
(le Róislín) While working on the last few blogs about “galar víris Ebola” and illnesses in general, I got to thinking — why do we have so many terms for describing health — even on the “lay” level? In English, we have “disease,” “illness,” “sickness,” “ache,” “disorder,” and, more generally, “malady” and “affliction.” Irish has…
‘Tá mé tinn’ and other ways to say “I’m ill” in Irish Posted by róislín on Oct 18, 2014
(le Róislín) Well, it’s not surprising that the English expression “to be under the weather” doesn’t translate literally into Irish. Most idioms don’t translate well from language to language. The closest equivalents can be found at the end of this blog. But what are the typical ways to say “I’m ill” in Irish or to…
‘In quarantine’ or ‘on quarantine’ — how to say it in Irish Posted by róislín on Oct 15, 2014
(le Róislín) In the recent blog on the Ebola virus (víreas Ebola), I referred briefly to saying “in quarantine” in Irish. It seems like a simple phrase to say, and the word for “quarantine” itself isn’t surprising — “coraintín” [KOR-antch-een], no relation to “aintín” as such! But it’s interesting to note the preposition that’s used…
How to say ‘Ebola,’ ‘Ebola Virus,’ and ‘Ebola Virus Disease’ in Irish Posted by róislín on Oct 10, 2014
(le Róislín) Not surprisingly, the word “Ebola” got an impressive 22,700,000 hits (22,700,000 amas), in my recent Google search. How many of those hits might be Irish-language resources? Since “Ebola,” as such, is exactly the same in Irish (Ebola), it’s not easy to search for results that are specifically in Irish. In fact, for many…