{"id":2041,"date":"2012-03-17T16:04:54","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T16:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=2041"},"modified":"2015-03-02T12:51:16","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T12:51:16","slug":"poit-poit-poitin-poitin-potaire-potaire-or-mind-your-sinti-fada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/poit-poit-poitin-poitin-potaire-potaire-or-mind-your-sinti-fada\/","title":{"rendered":"P\u00f3it, Poit, Poit\u00edn, P\u00f3it\u00edn, P\u00f3taire, Potaire, or, Mind Your \u201cS\u00ednt\u00ed Fada\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

gloine bheag do ghlinc\u00edn<\/p><\/div>\n

Continuing with the topic of tippling and toping for L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig<\/strong>, here\u2019s another interesting assortment of timely tidbits of vocabulary.\u00a0 Four of the words in the title actually have to do with drinking (really three and a variation), and two have nothing to do with drinking, but are simply here as a reminder of the importance of long marks over vowels in Irish.\u00a0 In these cases, the s\u00ednt\u00ed fada<\/strong> are the only way to distinguish certain words from their near-homonym short-voweled dictionary-entry mates.<\/p>\n

First let\u2019s look at \u201cp\u00f3it<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cpoit<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 Which is the drinking term?\u00a0 \u201cP\u00f3it<\/strong>,\u201d ar nd\u00f3igh<\/strong>.\u00a0 It\u2019s widely used these days for \u201changover,\u201d but it can also mean \u201cdrinking-bout\u201d or \u201cexcessive drinking\u201d in general.\u00a0 It shows up in the proverbial cure: Leigheas na p\u00f3ite a h\u00f3l ar\u00eds<\/strong>, often understood as \u201cthe hair of the dog that bit you,\u201d but literally it means \u201cthe cure of the hangover is its drinking again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vowel sound for \u201cp\u00f3it<\/strong>\u201d is a long \u201coh,\u201d so the word sounds almost like English \u201cpoach.\u201d\u00a0 On the other hand, we do have the word \u201cpoit<\/strong>\u201d (a poke or nudge), which sounds more like \u201cpwitch\u201d or \u201cpitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next we have \u201cpoit\u00edn<\/strong>\u201d [POTCH-een] and \u201cp\u00f3it\u00edn<\/strong>\u201d [POHTCH-een]\u00a0 In this case, the version with the long \u201co\u201d is simply a variation of \u201cpoit\u00edn<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 In my experience, poit\u00edn<\/strong> (short \u201co\u201d) is much more widely used.\u00a0 Since the word \u201cpoit\u00edn<\/strong>\u201d is based on\u00a0\u201cpota<\/strong>\u201d (a pot), the \u201co\u201d in \u201cpoit\u00edn<\/strong>\u201d would likely be short.<\/p>\n

Just to add to the mix, we could add the diminutive suffix, \u201c-\u00edn<\/strong>\u201d to the word for \u201changover,\u201d and make it \u201cp\u00f3it\u00edn<\/strong>\u201d also.\u00a0 So that would be a small or slight hangover, as well as a variation of the beverage that could actually give you the \u201cp\u00f3it<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, we have \u201cp\u00f3taire<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cpotaire<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 A \u201cp\u00f3taire<\/strong>\u201d (long \u201co\u201d) is a heavy drinker or toper.\u00a0 A \u201cpotaire<\/strong>\u201d (short \u201co\u201d) is a \u201cpotter;\u201d another word for \u201cpotter\u201d is \u201cpotad\u00f3ir<\/strong>,\u201d which would tend to lessen any possible confusion.\u00a0 \u00a0Likewise, we have \u201cp\u00f3taireacht<\/strong>\u201d (heavy drinking, drunkenness) and \u201cpotaireacht<\/strong>\u201d (pottery).<\/p>\n

All due to one little comhartha idirdhealaitheach<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

So does this mean that if you have a small hangover after drowning your shamrock in a small container of home-distilled (i.e. illicit) whiskey, you would have p\u00f3it\u00edn tar \u00e9is poit\u00edn poitin P\u00e1draig<\/strong> (a little hangover after a little pot of P\u00e1draig\u2019s poteen)?\u00a0 Of course, it was any ordinary gentleman named Patrick, not Naomh P\u00e1draig \u00e9 f\u00e9in<\/strong>, we\u2019d have lenition (p\u00f3it\u00edn tar \u00e9is poit\u00edn poit\u00edn Ph\u00e1draig<\/strong>).\u00a0 The saint\u2019s name is usually exempt from the standard initial mutation, cf. \u201cL\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig\u201d<\/strong> (no lenition for St. Patrick) but \u201cl\u00e1 breithe Ph\u00e1draig<\/strong>\u201d (with lenition) for example, if you were talking about your brother or friend named \u201cPatrick.\u201d \u00a0Puzal focal, nach ea? \u00a0SGF, R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) Continuing with the topic of tippling and toping for L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig, here\u2019s another interesting assortment of timely tidbits of vocabulary.\u00a0 Four of the words in the title actually have to do with drinking (really three and a variation), and two have nothing to do with drinking, but are simply here as a…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":2042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[376470,207379,207361,207315,5125,376469,10688,5808,5933,8246,207360,207353,207354,207355,7982,207384,207356,6935,6936,207357,207358],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-bit-you","tag-diacritical-mark","tag-drowning-the-shamrock","tag-drunkenness","tag-fada","tag-hair-of-the-dog","tag-hangover","tag-la-fheile-padraig","tag-long-mark","tag-naomh-padraig","tag-patricks-pot","tag-poit","tag-poitin","tag-potaire","tag-shamrock","tag-shot-glass","tag-sinti-fada","tag-st-patrick","tag-st-patricks-day","tag-tippler","tag-toper"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2041"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6405,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions\/6405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}