{"id":90,"date":"2009-10-24T16:31:36","date_gmt":"2009-10-24T20:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=90"},"modified":"2015-10-31T15:48:20","modified_gmt":"2015-10-31T15:48:20","slug":"bob-no-bia-%e2%80%93-trick-or-treat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/bob-no-bia-%e2%80%93-trick-or-treat\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob n\u00f3 Bia \u2013 Trick or Treat"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\n

Sorry, all you Bobs in the Bob Club (<\/span>www.thebobclub.com<\/span><\/a>).\u00a0 This blog (“Bob n\u00f3 Bia<\/strong>“) is not specifically about you, though I hope you\u2019ll find it of interest if you\u2019ve made it this far through cibearsp\u00e1s <\/strong>[KIB-yar-SPAWSS],.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBob\u201d <\/span><\/strong>is an Irish word that means \u201ca trick\u201d or \u201ca target” (in games).\u00a0 <\/strong>Pronunciation is straightforward enough, but please remember it\u2019s not quite the \u201cah\u201d sound we find in the English name \u201cBob,\u201d but rather the Irish short \u201co\u201d sound as in \u201cpota<\/strong>.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I should also mention that there\u2019s another word in Irish that\u2019s probably more widely used for \u201ctrick\u201d in general, that is \u201ccleas<\/strong>,\u201d which also means \u201ca feat\u201d or \u201can act.\u201d\u00a0 And for talking about targets in general, we have \u201csprioc<\/strong>\u201d and \u201ctargaid\u201d <\/strong>[TAR-uh-gidj], the latter largely used in sports terminology.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBia\u201d<\/span><\/strong> is a word many of you will already recognize, \u201cfood.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

No doubt a key factor in the phrase \u201cbob n\u00f3 bia<\/strong>\u201d is “uaim\u201d <\/strong>(alliteration), which also contributes to the tarraingteacht <\/strong>(catchiness) of the English \u201ctrick or treat.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, as I look for this fr\u00e1sa<\/strong> in some other languages, I find a lot of emphasis on uaim.\u00a0 <\/strong>Numerous phrases exist, although a lot of discussions indicate that the phrase is not traditional, as such.\u00a0 Some contributors say something to the effect of, \u201cWell, we don\u2019t really say that but you could say \u2026\u201d\u00a0 In some cases, the English phrase seems to be used in other languages.\u00a0 Nonetheless, many of the sampla\u00ed <\/strong>are a great f\u00f3ram uama<\/strong> (forum of alliteration): <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Possible phrases for “Trick or Treat” in other languages, seachas an Ghaeilge<\/strong>:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sp\u00e1innis<\/span><\/strong>: Truco o trato<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Fraincis:<\/span><\/strong> bonbons ou b\u00e2ton<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Iod\u00e1ilis<\/span><\/strong>: dolcetto o scherzetto<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Portaing\u00e9ilis:<\/span><\/strong> doces ou travessuras<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

R\u00f3m\u00e1inis:<\/span><\/strong> ne da\u0163i ori nu ne da\u0163i<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Seicis:<\/span><\/strong> koleda p\u0159i Halloweenu<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Which brings me to another point.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been wondering about the Irish for \u201cTrick or treat\u201d for about 20 years, but never encountered the phrase in a traditional context, despite having read volumes about the Irish origin of Halloween.\u00a0 So, while the phrase is certainly part of the Irish lexicon now, it remains unclear just how traidisi\u00fanta<\/strong> this particular phrase is.\u00a0 A quick turas ar an Idirl\u00edon <\/strong>yielded only 13 searchable examples for “bob n\u00f3 bia<\/strong>,” which showed up presumably because of how they were tagged.\u00a0 The vast comparison with the number of hits for\u00a0“trick or treat” in English, is, well, more or less, a foregone conclusion, but I just checked and got about deich milli\u00fan<\/strong> (10,000,000). <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There seems to be some reverse marketing going on, regarding Halloween, in that it is an Old World custom brought to the United States.\u00a0 Now it is being exported back to Europe, mostly in a more commercial sense.\u00a0 I\u2019ve talked to European adults from various countries who say that no, it was not part of their childhood.\u00a0 But now it has caught on, at least in the commercial sense (pop culture costumes, special candy manufacturing, etc.).\u00a0 Of course, many of these countries have their own festivities held at other times of the year, replete with cultacha traidisi\u00fanta n\u00f3 cruthaitheacha <\/strong>(creative), nathanna cainte <\/strong>(sayings), agus bian\u00f3sanna.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And, by the way, Bob(s), if you\u2019ve read this far, I probably will devote a future blog to your namesake, since there are all kinds of interesting Irish words that either equate to one of the dozen or so meanings \u201cbob\u201d has in English, or are borrowed from English and are, therefore, also spelled \u201cbob<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 Now if all the Bobs in the Bob Club (Cumann na mBob?) <\/strong>start reading this blog, that will be quite an impressive number!\u00a0 An bhfuil sibh ann, a lucht na mBob?<\/strong>\u00a0Sl\u00e1n go f\u00f3ill —\u00a0<\/strong>R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

N\u00f3ta: na mBob<\/span><\/strong> [num ob, the first \u201cb\u201d becomes silent] of the Bobs<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) Sorry, all you Bobs in the Bob Club (www.thebobclub.com).\u00a0 This blog (“Bob n\u00f3 Bia“) is not specifically about you, though I hope you\u2019ll find it of interest if you\u2019ve made it this far through cibearsp\u00e1s [KIB-yar-SPAWSS],.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cBob\u201d is an Irish word that means \u201ca trick\u201d or \u201ca target” (in games).\u00a0 Pronunciation is…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[4367,4413,4695,4856,4864,4888,287,3213,5667,5747,6197,2410,6623,143,6921,7026,7078,7182,7191,7192],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-bianosanna","tag-bob-no-bia","tag-cleas","tag-cultacha-traidisiunta","tag-cumann-na-mbob","tag-czech","tag-french","tag-halloween","tag-irish","tag-italian","tag-na-mbob","tag-portuguese","tag-romanian","tag-spanish","tag-sprioc","tag-targaid","tag-the-bob-club","tag-treat","tag-trick","tag-trick-or-treat"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","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=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7233,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/7233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}