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

By: DMAustin

DMAustin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:20:47 +0000

How cynical we are in this world of publishing–(within which I have increasingly sadly worked for decades).”Analytical….Critical.Academic….” Ad nauseum Ad queezium.

What about (without romanticizing or demonizing) a courageous work about forgotten voices,nuances,hunches,ideas for heavens sakes??? In agreement with Mr.MacDonald–who else ASKED THESE QUESTIONS?

Daniel Cassidy cared more about the importance of these questions for all the right reasons.Humanity.Pride.Truth.QuestioningAuthority.Justice.Argument.Past.Future.Present.Imperialism.Lexicon.Life.

Thank you,Daniel Cassidy. Thank you.

By: Seán D

Seán D — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:21:50 +0000

I have looked with interest at the claims made by Cassidy and I have to say, I agree entirely with those who criticize his methods and his lack of rigour. I am a fluent Irish speaker and I can assure you that the vast majority of his examples simply cannot be true. For example, teas ioma for gism. Teas does mean heat but you can’t stick the word ioma after a word to mean too. The language just doesn’t work like that. Cassidy should actually learn some Irish before he makes claims like this. I am also staggered that this book has won awards and been given good reviews in respectable newspapers.

By: Sean Sweeney

Sean Sweeney — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:30:24 +0000

The WASPish detractors of Cassidy fail to detail how the nation’s second largest ethnic group, noted for their garrulousness and bent of language, situated in large numbers primarily in port cities where later non-English speaking immigrants would casually learn these “English” slang words along with the Queen’s English words and disseminate them across the country as they migrated westward could not have had an influence on American slang.
It just makes no sense to assert that!

I agree with commenter #9. Institutionalized lexicographic racism has much to do with it.

Reminds me of the story Lenny Bruce told how he performed his schtick, popular in America, to a crowd in a music hall in the Midlands of England. No one laughed. They didn’t get his humor.

Bombing and desperate, out of his brilliant mind he yells out, “F*ck the Irish”. Further silence.

Then, from the balcony, someone yells, “Yes, f*ck the Irish”. Another followed suit: “F*ck the Irish”. Soon, the crowd was chanting “F*ck the Irish”.

How many of the lexicographers who disparage Cassidy’s theory were in that audience, I wonder?

By: Michael P MacDonald

Michael P MacDonald — Sat, 14 May 2011 05:43:16 +0000

Who, before Danny Cassidy, asked the question, “How is it that the Irish contributed next to nothing to the English lexicon?”
No one.
And it’s not about prejudice toward early Irish immigrants to America. British prejudice toward ANYTHING Irish has lasted into very recent days, and is only changing with the shifting demographics of Britain (blacker fish to fry, ie the newer target of racism: blacks and Muslims; as well as the fact that so many Brit children are now part Irish).
MPM

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:08:08 +0000

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.

By: mpb

mpb — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:46:24 +0000

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.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:10:29 +0000

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.

By: mpb

mpb — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:00:20 +0000

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.

By: William

William — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:45:13 +0000

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.

By: mpb

mpb — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:32:32 +0000

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.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:04:12 +0000

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.