Complete Blarney: Daniel Cassidy’s How The Irish Invented Slang

How the Irish Invented Slang by Daniel Cassidy

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Complete Blarney – Lexicographer Grant Barrett has posted an excellent explication of the flaws and lack of intellectual rigor displayed in Daniel Cassidy’s How The Irish Invented Slang, which purports to find secret Irish origins for common American vernacular.

Back in October, I reviewed the book for PopMatters and, like Barrett, was disappointed and alarmed by the casual, off-the-cuff manner in which Cassidy made his assertions.

The weakness of his research and in his methodology is apparent to anyone with two eyes and a minute to crack open the book. That’s what makes this surprisingly positive profile in The New York Times so frustrating. A minimal amount of effort would have revealed to the writer than Cassidy’s arguments are without merit, at best the result of sloppiness, at worst a con job.

Tags: How The Irish Invented Slang, Lexicography, Book Review

8 Comments Add your own

Maybe so – but it’s fun!

I have no “agenda” as far as word origins go but having scanned this book I find the convoluted traditional explanations of the origins of many of these words as pretty unlikely considering many are phonetic renderings of words with the exact same meaning in Irish language.

I understand your take, Peter. Consider, however, that Cassidy does have an agenda: proving his theory that many words previously with non-Irish etymologies are truly of Irish extraction. Solely using the evidence contained in the book to validate the book’s proposed theory doesn’t exactly work, because the evidence was chosen specifically to do just that, and may not be entirely valid, as many external observers (myself included) have pointed out. Some of the “exact same definitions in Irish” come from sources Cassidy fails to cite properly (see my example of “kibosh” in the PopMatters review), and thus they cannot be verified.

I suggest you read Language Log’s excellent analysis of Cassidy’s claim regarding the word “bunkum,” where Cassidy found an Irish word with a similar pronunciation for a word whose non-Irish origins are clear and have never been in doubt. Or Grant Barrett’s earlier warning about the perils of phonetic comparisons.

Though there are some valid claims in How the Irish Invented Slang, there are far more speculative, unfounded claims that unfortunately taint the work and undermine Cassidy’s efforts.

While some of Cassidy’s claims might be speculative, they are no more so than many of the entries in the OED and other dictionaries for many of these words. Some of the purported origins of these words in the OED are such a stretch that they are completely implausible, not to mention the many that simply say origin unknown. I teach Irish and Irish-American history at a university and I had much the same reaction as Peter Quinn when I first read Cassidy’s book–yes, that’s where the Irish influence on American English is, in slang. I remember my grandparents, great aunts and uncles, all born in the 1880s and 90s, using many of these words, and as the children of immigrants who spoke Irish, it just made sense to me. Although Cassidy may go too far with some of his connections, I find many of the reviews that are hyper critical of him have that patronizing tone academics often have when they’ve been upstaged. Even if only 15-20% of Cassidy’s word connections are correct, he still has pointed out a significant gap in American lexicography that has gone unnoticed by the professionals for a century.

William,

I’m not an academic. I’m an Irish-American reader who loves words and was very disappointed and frustrated with this book. I do agree that there is likely a gap in American lexicography owing to the marginalization of early Irish immigrants, but it’s a gap that should be filled with serious study and analysis. Cassidy’s book, though well-meaning, does not fit the bill. Rather, it exploits that gap and fills it with wishful thinking that, while appealing, is hardly any better than guesswork.

I agree with you William. While Cassidy’s work may have been sloppy and some of his derivations a stretch, he broke through a barrier that cannot be closed now. Ground breakers often have to make a mess first. Smashin’ or a scam, no one can ignore his work or deny the impact of An Ghaelige on the English language anymore.

My concern, Brian, is that Cassidy has given those who do not agree with the Irish influence theory ammunition that can be used to undermine it. The ends do not justify the means, and we should not accept dubious scholarship simply because it caters to our personal preferences.

I am a student of Linguistics and the Irish language. I read the book and must say I found some of the examples quite convincing and insightful. Most were interesting, quite possible but lacked substantial examples and support. And some seemed a complete stretch of the imagination and outlandish. My break down would be as follows:

ca. 25% – “you’re probably right there, hope the dictionary makers take notice”
ca. 50% – “interesting, but I won’t be convinced until I see real evidence”
ca. 25% “Yeah right…. and would you like to sell me some magic beans with that?”

Anyway, with this and the writing style in mind, I think this book should not be treated as a serious linguistic text, but rather much more a popular entertainment look at linguistics, like the book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”, and a good one at that.

Despite this, I think although the author won’t get the majority of his examples into any major dictionary, he will succeed in provoking a good debate and maybe a few of his examples will go the whole way. That cannot be a bad thing.

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I'm a Boston-based writer and editor, covering technology, books, and music. My work has appeared in publications like The Boston Phoenix, PopMatters, ALARM Magazine and Forbes.com.