{"id":8354,"date":"2016-08-31T11:50:59","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T11:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=8354"},"modified":"2017-12-03T17:40:08","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T17:40:08","slug":"on-the-pigs-back-vs-on-the-implied-hogs-back-an-irish-expression-exegetically-examined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/on-the-pigs-back-vs-on-the-implied-hogs-back-an-irish-expression-exegetically-examined\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Pig’s Back vs. On the (implied) Hog’s Back: An Irish Expression Exegetically Examined"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

A recent query about the Irish expression “on the pig’s back” prompted me to go back to the original blogpost on that topic in this series (nasc th\u00edos, agus GRMA, a Jacqueline<\/strong>). \u00a0\u00a0Apparently over the years (and long before the beginning of this blog in 2009), many people have wondered whether the Irish and Hiberno-English expression “on the pig’s back” (ar muin na muice, ar mhuin na muice, ar dhroim na muice<\/strong>) and the English expression “high on the hog” are related.\u00a0 That’s a question that I don’t have the answer to but an investigation of the phrases should, minimally, prove interesting.\u00a0 \u00a0So, on to our main topic at hand (or should I say, “at hoof,” referring to a “cr\u00fab muice<\/strong>“?).<\/p>\n

\"Ar<\/a>

Ar mhaith leat a bheith ar muin na muice seo <\/em>(Sus barbatus)? (grafaic: By Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., Canada (Sus Barbatus, the Bornean Bearded Pig) [CC BY 2.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>; t\u00e9acs, just an comhartha uaillbhreasa sa ch\u00e1s seo, le R\u00f3isl\u00edn)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

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“On the pig’s back” basically means “doing really well.” There are at least two ways to say this in Irish:<\/p>\n

ar muin\/mhuin na muice<\/strong>, lit. on (the) back (of) the pig (nicely alliterative, with the two “m’s”!)<\/p>\n

ar dhroim na muice<\/strong>, lit. on (the) back (of) the pig<\/p>\n

For newcomers to Irish, the “c” in “muice<\/strong>” is a type of “k” sound, like the “c” in the English “acute” or Irish “ceol<\/strong>.”\u00a0 And the “m,” is “broad,” in fact, I’d say “very broad.”\u00a0 So the words “muin<\/strong>” and “muice<\/strong>” are pronounced like “mw<\/sup>in” and “MW<\/sup>IK-yuh,” respectively. \u00a0The “MW<\/sup>” sound resembles the “m” of French “moi<\/em>” or “mois<\/em>,” but, offhand (offhoof?), I can’t think of any English parallels.<\/p>\n

“Muin<\/strong>” and “droim<\/strong>” both mean “back,” usually of the body, and never “back” as in “They’re baa-aack,” to quote Carol Anne of Poltergeist a D\u00f3<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(as it were), played by the charming but tragically ill-fated Heather O’Rourke (b. 1975, d. 1988).<\/p>\n

“Droim<\/strong>” has several other meanings, mostly body-related or bodylike by analogy: crest, instep (droim coise<\/strong>), spine, or ridge of land (since it resembles a spine).<\/p>\n

“Muin<\/strong>,” in my experience, is used just for animals, especially horses as in “ar muin capaill<\/strong>” \/ “ar mhuin capaill<\/strong>” (on horseback), and obviously, in today’s context, for pigs.<\/p>\n

As for how to say “high on the hog” in Irish, the usual equivalent has nothing to do with hogs.\u00a0 It’s “saol na bhfu\u00edoll<\/strong>” [seel nuh weel, catchy-sounding, nach ea<\/strong>?].\u00a0 Literally, it means “the life of the surplus” and it is also considered equivalent to living “off the fat of the land.”\u00a0 If we were to approach “high on the hog” literally (generally not recommended for metaphors and idiomatic expressions), we’d use some combination of “ard<\/strong>” (high) + ar an<\/strong> (on the) + muc<\/strong> OR (g)collach coillte<\/strong> (depending on whether you consider “hog” to be simply “pig” in general or an, umm, certain type of boar” (that’s with “coillte<\/strong>,” past participle of “coill<\/strong>,” although the “collach<\/strong>” probably doesn’t care what kind of participle it is, since that “part” is now past!).<\/p>\n

So why did I say, “implied” hog’s back in the title of this blogpost?\u00a0 Bhuel<\/strong>, I guess if you are somehow “high on the hog,” you’d be on its back, not it’s belly.\u00a0 Pork belly — now that’s \u00e1bhar eile ar fad<\/strong>!\u00a0 But somehow, “high on the hog” doesn’t create such a visual image for me as “on the pig’s back” does.\u00a0 Maybe “high on the hog” seems even more metaphorical, and less bodylike.<\/p>\n

Given the issues of distinguishing pigs from hogs, perhaps sometime in the future we’ll look more into the Irish terms these categories of suids (mucra<\/strong>).\u00a0 Tricky thing is there’s some semantic overlap (“hog” can sometimes simply mean “pig”), but otherwise we tend to separate out the words fairly specifically, at least in English.\u00a0 So we have:<\/p>\n

Hogwarts, not *Pigwarts<\/p>\n

Hogwort (the plant Croton capitatus<\/em>), not, afaik, *Pigwort (except as a misinterpretation of “pigweed” or “figwort” — sometimes it seems “anything goes,” as far as language possibilities are concerned)<\/p>\n

Hogwash, not *Pigwash<\/p>\n

Piggyback, not *Hoggyback<\/p>\n

Pigtails, not *Hogtails<\/p>\n

Pigs in pokes, but not “*hogs in pokes,” which would lose the catchy alliteration.\u00a0 The Irish equivalent of “Don’t buy a pig in a poke,” by the way, also features alliteration (of the letter “m,” not “p” as in the English).\u00a0 But, as a lover of alliteration, I’ll take the combo in any language.\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, the Irish is “N\u00e1 ceannaigh muc i m\u00e1la<\/strong>,” lit. Don’t buy a pig in a bag (m\u00e1la<\/strong>), with “bag” being the counterpart of the English version’s “poke” (i.e. a small sack or detached pocket, like the one that Lucy Locket lost and Kitty Fisher found).\u00a0 Actually, this brings up an interesting question for any readers here who know languages other than Irish and English.\u00a0 Does this phrase exist in your language?\u00a0 And if so, is it alliterative?<\/p>\n

Curiously though, both “pig<\/em>-eyed” and “hog<\/em>-eyed” exist, at least in English. \u00a0I’ll have to check out the Irish in the future. \u00a0And similarly, apparently we can have both “pig-calling contests” and “hog-calling contests,” though prior to researching this blogpost, I would have sworn we always say “hog-calling.”\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 Ach is \u00e1bhair shuimi\u00fala do bhlagmh\u00edreanna eile iad seo.\u00a0 Cine\u00e1lacha s\u00fal — \u00e1bhar an-suimi\u00fail!\u00a0 Agus “muc” vs. “collach coillte”<\/strong> (one of the definitions of “hog”), sin \u00e1bhar suimi\u00fail eile, agus b’fh\u00e9idir, don chollach \u00e9 f\u00e9in, beag\u00e1n pianmhar<\/strong>.\u00a0 And in case you’re wondering (how often Irish makes us wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who, who wrote the rules of Irish?), that’s not<\/em> “coillte<\/strong>” as in “forests.”\u00a0 It’s the other “coillte<\/strong>.”\u00a0 Look it up, if you don’t already know the “T\u00e1 mo mhadra<\/strong> …” song.<\/p>\n

So, why write all this, if I don’t have the answer to the original question — is “on the pig’s back” related to “high on the hog”? Bhuel<\/strong>, as someone once said (I think), it’s not so much getting an answer as it is gathering information along the way.\u00a0 I hope you found the query interesting, even if the details were a bit quagmirish.\u00a0 In fact, trying to answer it, and many other word\/phrase origin questions, makes me feel a bit like a “hog on ice,” another curious expression.\u00a0 But an examination of that<\/em> phrase will have to wait for another blogpost.\u00a0 There is an Irish phrase for “skittering” (d\u00e9anamh sciotair\u00edn<\/strong>) but it appears to have more to do with “Ducks and Drakes” rather than hogs skittering about on ice.\u00a0 Well, anyway, ducks, drakes, hogs, pigs — animal metaphors rule, don’t they?<\/p>\n

Quitting before I digress further, \u00a0SGF — R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

P.S. In case you’re wondering, I’m wondering too — why do all the sources I find say “cr\u00fab muice<\/strong>,” instead of “cr\u00fab mhuice<\/strong>“?\u00a0 This seems to defy the “scian ph\u00f3ca<\/strong>” rule (when a noun functions as an adjective and describes another noun, specifically a feminine singular one, as “pocket” does to “knife” in “scian ph\u00f3ca<\/strong>“).\u00a0 An freagra ag duine ar bith?\u00a0 Seachas an gn\u00e1thfhreagra<\/strong> [pronounce that as: GNAW-RAG-ruh, btw, in case you’re new to Irish pronunciation — the initial “g” is pronounced, the “f” in the middle is not], the “gn\u00e1thfhreagra<\/strong>” being “Sin mar at\u00e1<\/strong>,” or, to quote Tevye, “Traidisi\u00fan<\/strong>!”\u00a0 That’s assuming Tevye could speak and sing Irish.\u00a0 What he really said was, “Tradition!” and if we unsuspend our disbelief, he should in theory have been saying “Traditsye<\/em>,” at least according to Word Hippo’s entry for the Yiddish for “tradition.”<\/p>\n

P.P.S.\u00a0 And a special note to “Youngmin” of Korea, who was learning Irish at least a few years back.\u00a0 Remember when we discussed the “pig in the poke” proverb, back in Davenport?\u00a0 If you’re still reading this blog, I hope your study of Irish is going well.<\/p>\n

Nasc:\u00a0<\/strong>Ar Dhroim (Ar Muin) na Muice: Not Quite The Same as \u201cHigh on the Hog\u201d<\/a>Posted by r\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/a> on May 5, 2012 in Irish Language<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) A recent query about the Irish expression “on the pig’s back” prompted me to go back to the original blogpost on that topic in this series (nasc th\u00edos, agus GRMA, a Jacqueline). \u00a0\u00a0Apparently over the years (and long before the beginning of this blog in 2009), many people have wondered whether the Irish…<\/p>\n

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