le Róislín

Here’s another sampling of phrases using the word “leath,” sometimes as a prefix (causing lenition) and sometimes as a separate word.  Ar dtús, samplaí mar réimír:

leathbháite, half-drowned, drenched

leathscoite, semi-detached (said of a house, etc.)

leath-théarma, half-term, as in a “half-term break”

and, curiously, leathnocht, half-naked (cén leath atá i gceist anseo?)

Apropos of Lá Fhéile Pádraig, which is coming up:

leathphionta, half-pint

leathchaoch, half-blind or half-drunk

Agus anois, cúpla ceann nach bhfuil ceangailte don ainmfhocal:

leath bealaigh go dtí na Flaithis, Halfway to Heaven, which could either be ainm amhráin (a song name, de chuid an ghrúpa “Europe”), ainm scannáin (a film name, ó 2009 nó, i bhfad roimhe sin, scannán eile ó 1929), or, I suppose, just a frása ginearálta.  For clarification, best ask Clarence (an t-aingeal nach raibh a sciatháin aige fós), is dócha.  Deirtear “leathbhealaigh” freisin.

Is fearr leath ná meath, half is better than nothing (lit. better than failure (seanfhocal, a proverb)

ar leath pá, on half-pay

bó leath aimsire, lit. “a cow of half time,” meaning “cow halfway through her tréimhse iompair” (period of gestation).  And how many months would that be?   Freagra thíos.  Anyway, I’ll have to remember that phrase next time a give my class a dictation exercise.  But for the slenderness of the “r” in “aimsire,” it might sound a lot like “leathaimseartha” (half-time, as in “fifty percent of the time”).  So, in theory that could be a cow which is only a cow half the time.  What it would be the other half of the time, I sh(udder) to think. Perhaps it lives in some réaltacht mhalartach, where they also keep the “píopaí nach bhfuil ina bpíopaí.”   

And why “aimsire” anyway, you might wonder?  This is from “aimsir” as “a period of time,” which we also see in phrases like “an aimsir chaite” (the past tense) and “an aimsir láithreach” (the present tense).  In more general conversation, “aimsir” usually means “weather,” but it does have that range of meanings, much like “tiempo” in Spanish. 

SGF, ó Róislín

Freagra: Ceithre mhí go leith, four and a half months, plus a few more days for some sizes and breeds.    “Leath” changes to “leith” in the phrase “go leith,” which means “and a half.”  This also occurs in phrases such as “dhá uair go leith” (two and a half hours), seacht n-uaire go leith (seven and a half hours), and “céad go leith,” one hundred and a half, i.e. one hundred and fifty.